The Keatts Family: Welcome Rowan Spencer Keatts!

Guess what, y'all? I'm not setting any world records to longest pregnancy ever, I'm just a really bad blogger :)

We welcomed a little BOY on November 30th, 2011, one day before my due date. We named him Rowan Spencer. Like with Avery, it took us quite a while to come up with a middle name! I love the name Spencer and am so glad we went with it. It was so exciting not knowing what we were having! I wasn't surprised when they said boy, not because I had a hunch, but because it just felt right. It probably would have felt the same had they said girl. We really had no preference, we're just feeling so blessed! Rowan weighed 7 lbs 13 oz and was 20.5 inches long. He's perfect in every way!

I thought for sure I'd be induced sinced it looked like I was going to be going past my due date. It wasn't the case though. I had taken Grayson and Avery to Walmart that morning for a few last minute things and easy to make food for the next couple of days. I'd been having contractions on and off for the last few days, just like with Avery. I woke up that Wednesday morning with them coming pretty spaced out. When we were walking around Walmart they picked up and I got a bit nervous, grabbed the rest of my things and headed home.

The contractions were coming consistently throughout the day but were really short. By the time the kids were down for their naps I started sweeping, doing dishes, packing bags, you know, the things you do when you're getting a feeling your baby may be making an appearance :) All the while though, my contractions would only last 30 seconds, tops. I called my mom, gave her the heads up, etc., etc. and kept on picking things up. I really thought they'd probably stop, but I wanted to be prepared and to keep myself busy. By 3:45, my contractions were coming every couple of minutes, but still really short. I called the nurse at my doctor's office because I went really quick with Avery and didn't want to be missing any signs! So after a quick conversation with her, I headed in to the hospital to see where we were at.

I called my friend Heather to give me a lift because Andy was going to be taking the kids to his mom's house. She wasn't quite home yet and we HAD to get dog food if this really was what was going down. Heather and I headed to St. Mary's and Andy and the kids went to the grain growers to get dog food and then to his mom's to wait with the kids to see what my progress was. (I still didn't know if I was in labor or not!) By the time I got to the hospital, I was getting less worried about being embarrassed and sent home. They didn't have any available rooms, so I went to a recovery room to be monitored by hand. I was in there for a bit where it was confirmed I was going to be staying and having a baby. They moved me to a different room to be hooked up to monitors to be sure baby was tolerating labor. By this point Andy got there and I started my mantra that I would continue for the rest of the night. "This is STUPID and I'm never doing this again!" I said this a lot :) It was that or start swearing. I always feel like an idiot for forgetting it hurts!

A few hours, a lot of "this is stupid" talk and one epidural later, Rowan Spencer Keatts made his way into the world at 9:41 pm, quickly and painlessly, surrounded by family and friends, just like I like it! My doctor wasn't able to deliver me, which was sad, but he checked on me until he went home for the night which meant almost more to me than who would be "catching". The doc I had wasn't very enthuiastic about announcing it's a boy so eventually it was announced. My doc had grand plans and was so excited that we were keeping it a surprise! That personal experience was the hardest part to miss out on with him not delivering me. We had a great first night, Rowan was a great nurser and everything went really well.

I did have wretched after pains, like give me another epidural bad. Small price to pay for such a sweet baby boy, I suppose. Andy took two weeks off which was awesome! It gave me some intense snuggle time with Rowan without the guilt of ignoring the other kids. Then, Andy could take over with baby and I could hang with the "big" kids :)

I guess recovery or the brave factor is better with your third because we got home from the hosptial late afternoon and headed to a birthday party that night. Everyone was happy to be together again after a couple of days apart!