Leo's Birth Story

I don't think I could ever forget my son's entrance into this world but I would hate to not document it and then not remember something so here goes.

Monday night we checked into the hospital for the beginning of the induction process.  They start with what is called cervical ripening (sorry dad!).  I was given a medicine around 7:30pm and then we were just told to wait.  We watched the national championship football game and read and listened to music while we waited.  I was hooked up to a monitor so we watched Grover's (he was still nameless at that point. . . ) heart rate.  I had contractions overnight but they never got strong or into a regular pattern.
At 7:30 Tuesday morning, we met our new nurse Amy.  She told us that she would be with us all day from beginning until delivery.  She heard the praise music playing on my ipad and we told her a little bit about our story.  She asked if she could pray with us before she checked me and started anything else.  What a blessing it was to have a nurse pray with us to calm our fears!  Amy checked me and she said it did not seem like anything had changed but that she would let the doctor know.  Dr. Wagner came in around 8:30 and let us know that he had been watching the monitor and did not see enough progress and that we were going to go ahead with a c-section at 11:30.  It was kind of a whirlwind after that.  There were blood draws, 3 tries at an iv, and people coming in to inform us of what would happen.  My parents got there around 10:00 and the nurses came in to say that we were going to start early!  Ryan got all gussied up in his scrubs and we walked to the operating room.  I was more than a little nervous and I heard Amy asking God to give me peace and help me calm down.  What an awesome feeling to have someone talking to God on your behalf when you cannot!  I had my spinal and they prepped everything. Ryan came in, and 15 minutes later, Leo Christopher was born. 
The NICU team took Leo just after the doctor showed him to me and Ryan was able to go back and forth between where they were working with Leo and the operating room where I was.  I could see them from where I was which was another blessing.  The team decided that Leo needed to go to the NICU because he just had a little too much fluid in his lungs. They had stalled for a while, trying to give him time to clear his lungs but he just couldn't do it. (He wanted to check out the NICU and charm some nurses over there) They wheeled the transporter out through the operating room so I could see him again and Ryan went with them over to Children's Hospital.  The blessing with them stalling to give Leo some time was that between when they left and when I was out of the operating room was about 5 minutes. 
My mom met me as we left and we went to recovery.  I spent about an hour and a half there before Amy (the nurse) wheeled me off to Children's to see Leo.
There you have it, Leo Christopher Miller's birth story :-)