Welcome Cooper Neal Kitchen!

What a day!

We went to the doctor on Wednesday afternoon, and found out that she was dilated to 2.5 – 3 cm. He said he would be surprised if we made it a week. A week? Yeah, right!

Thursday morning (just hours after the doctor’s visit), Janelle woke up around 2 am with labor pains. She let me sleep another hour, and then woke me up around 3 am. We worked through it all and hung out at the house. She basically walked through the contractions.

Around 5 am, they seemed to be getting closer and more intense, so we decided to come on in to Central Baptist Hospital. We got here around 6:30 am, and at first they took their sweet time. They finally did the medical history, etc. and checked her. She had dilated to 7 cm! They rushed us to a delivery room so we could get started and get Janelle set up with an epidural to help with some really, really bad back labor pains.

We were in the delivery room for several hours, working through contractions. When the doctor came in, we found out that Cooper had turned face up, instead of face down. We also learned that Janelle has a small pelvis, and if we couldn’t get him to turn around he wasn’t coming out that way. She pushed and pushed and pushed…for a couple hours she went through contractions and pushing. Finally, about 1:30 pm, they decided he wasn’t coming out that way and determined it would need to be a c-section.

After the prep work and all, they took Janelle to the OR around 3 pm, and came to get me a little later. At 3:36 pm, I got to watch the birth of Cooper Neal. The doctor showed him to us, and then took him to the other side of the room to clean and check vitals. Janelle was in a little pain and a whole lot of discomfort, so they knocked her out while they finished with her surgery.

The nurses handed Cooper to me, and after a few minutes in the OR I walked him down to the nursery, where they cleaned him up some more, checked his weight (7 lbs, 15 oz), and length (20 inches). He stayed in there for some time.

Janelle made her way to recovery, and we were finally re-connected there. After an hour there, we should have been able to go to our room, but they didn’t have any that were clean. They did eventually bring Cooper to us, and Janelle’s parents and sister were able to come back and see everyone. After about 3 hours, we finally got to our room.

So we’re here now, and all is good. With the c-section, we’re here until Sunday (unless something changes), but everything is going well. Cooper has a full head of hair and is absolutely perfect. We are so fortune to have such a wonderful son, and such great friends and family to support us through this experience.

I hope you’ll enjoy a few pictures, and thank you for your calls, texts, emails and well wishes.