Alex Ryan Bennison!!

Alex Ryan Bennison arrived on Friday, August 31 at 10:48am!!

(The next paragraph will be the "labor and birth story" so skip this portion of it yucks you out!)

Benny and I were getting ready for bed at 11:30pm on Thursday night when I started having contractions.  Immediately, they were 2-5 minutes apart but because I was in early labor for so long with Andrew (10 hours) and this was just my second baby, I decided to try to go to bed. At around 2:15am, after not really ever falling asleep, I got up and went out to the couch.  I was still contracting every 2-5min, so I called work to talk to some of my coworkers to get their input about whether I should come in.  They all decided I should, so I took a shower, got some things together and woke up Benny.  Since none of our family lives anywhere close to us, we had recruited one of our awesome babysitters (Laura, a student at JMU) to be "on call" for us to watch Andrew when I went into labor.  Unfortunately, that happened to be at 3:30 in the morning!!  She is incredible, and had such a great attitude about coming over (and then skipping her Friday classes!).  After she arrived, we headed to the hospital and got checked in.  At around 5am when Chasity checked me, I was 4-5cm.  I decided I was ready for an epidural (I thought I'd been hurting long enough--no need to feel any more pain!), and by 6:30am I was VERY comfortable!  At 8am my doctor checked me again and I was 7cm, but my contractions had spaced way out after the epidural, so we started a little pitocin, and sometime after the epidural my water had broken.  The doctor and my nurse (Carlinda) thought that Andrew was "O.P." or "sunny side up" so I spent the next couple of hours turning from side to side to get him in the right direction.  At 10:15 or 10:30am, Carlinda and Dr Scheidt came in to check me again.  They said Alex was "right there" and had me "practice push" once.  Benny, Carlinda and Dr Scheidt all became very wide eyed and said "whoa!  Stop there!" after that one push because he came down very well!  They got everything together for delivery, I pushed for a couple more contractions, and Alex Ryan arrived at 10:48am!! 

 

 

 

Ready to go home!!  RMH lets their patients go home after 24 hours, which was wonderful!!

 

My mom arrived on Saturday, September 1 and stayed for a week to help out.  Then, Kathy (Benny's mom)  arrived the day my mom left and stayed for 11 days!!  We were SOOOO thankful for their help!! We love you guys!

 

First family photo!

 

 

Now that it's "just the four of us,"  we're getting used to life with a new addition to the family.  Alex is a GREAT baby--he nurses well and sleeps well and is growing like crazy.  I've heard people say that the hardest thing about a second child is the toddler, and I would definitely agree!!  Andrew is very loving and sweet to Alex, and doesn't seem jealous when I'm holding or nursing Alex, but we've definitely noticed that he's "regressed" on the progress we'd made with saying "no" and listening.  We try, by the grace of God, to love him with the same love, grace and patience that the Lord shows us multiple times every day.  Thankfully, THANKFULLY, I have an incredible husband to muddle through this incredibly difficult task of parenting with!!  God knows I need that man!!