Taking Chances: Introducing the newest Finnen...

Grady Franklin Finnen

Born: Tuesday, July 2, 2013 at 5:13am

7lbs 1oz and 20.5" long

In June, Kevin and I had arranged with our doctor to induce labor on July 2^nd, and were scheduled to arrive at the hospital on Monday(July 1st) evening at 8pm to get settled into our room.

Before heading to the hospital

On Monday, July 1^st, Kevin and I were packing up the car to head to the hospital in hopes of meeting our baby boy. I had actually started having contractions around 3:30am, but they weren't very strong and were 15 minutes apart. Closer to 5pm, the contractions got stronger and were slowly getting closer together so we decided to head to the hospital a little early.

Upon arrival, I was in a lot of pain with each contraction, but they were still only 8 minutes apart. After we got in our room, the nurse (Tammy) came in to hook me up to all of the monitors and to start my IV. I was given some pain medication (that honestly did nothing for me, and probably doesn't help much for any woman in labor). I wasn't dilating as fast as I (or any woman) had hoped and just knew that it was going to be a very long night. Around 12am, I still wasn't dilated past 1.5cm, but was hurting so bad that they went ahead and started my epidural and small dose of Pitocin. That sure helped!

At 3:30am, I told Kevin to wake up because we were at 6cm (I’ve never seen him move that quick after waking up). He called and texted family to let them know that we would be having a baby soon (hopefully). Everyone started arriving at the hospital around 4:30am, just in time for us to tell them that we were at 10cm and ready to have this baby! The nurse asked the fam to go to the waiting room, and we would let them know when Grady had arrived.

By 5:13am, 25 minutes after we started to push, Grady let out a little cry and was being passed to Kevin and me to hold. Everything went so fast and I can’t even explain the emotions running through me at the time. Once they had him all checked out and told us that we had a healthy baby, I told Kevin to grab my makeup bag and hair brush so I could freshen up before the crowd flooded into our room (priorities, healthy baby…check; fix the hot mess going on with my hair…).

Before

After (Bring 'em in)

The next few days/weeks were full of visits from family and friends coming to meet the baby. We had some wonderful meals delivered to our house from our amazing church family at Hoover Church of Christ. Kevin and I are so very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends, and God added to our abundant blessings by giving us Grady.

Below are a few pictures of the newest member of our family. He's so perfect, and we just can't get enough of his sweet face.