Baby Frank is here!

Yesterday at 6:45 p.m. we welcomed our son Frank Edward Bernardo into this world, and our lives are forever changed! He is a big, healthy, strong and precious boy, and we already love him more than anything in the entire world. I wanted to write out his birth story now before I forget all the details. We arrived at the hospital yesterday for our induction at 7:30 a.m. The doctor came in and inserted prostaglandin gel in my cervix at 9:00 to try to get labor started. I had already been having contractions on and off for a week, and my cervix was dilated to 2 and 80 percent effaced when we started. He let the gel work for about three hours, and then he checked me at noon and was dilated to 3 and 80 percent effaced. They broke my water at 1:00, and my contractions instantly got much more intense. I waited until about 2:30 to get the epidural, and wow, once I got that, everything got a little bit easier! I was so scared of everything in the beginning--inserting the gel, inserting the IV, cervical exams, breaking my water. But once the epidural was in, they could do whatever they wanted and I did not feel a thing. It was crazy to feel like the legs that were attached to me belonged to someone else.

After they gave me the epidural, the resident checked me around 3:30 and said I was 4-5 cm dilated and that the baby had dropped even more. She told me I had between 7 and 12 hours of labor left, on top of 1-3 hours of pushing. Luckily, that was not what my body had in store! I dilated to 8-9 cm by 5:00, and was 10 cm, 100% effaced, and ready to push by 6:00. I pushed for 30 minutes, and Frank was born!! He weighed 8 pounds, 3 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. The doctors were amazed that I pushed a baby that big out so easily. I had a second degree tear, but it is healing nicely. I didn' t think I would want to look at the mirror while pushing, but I did, and it was such an awesome experience. It was so hard to push without any feeling in my legs, but having the mirror there really helped me focus. It was so nuts to see his head come out!
We are so in love with baby Frank already. Big Frank has been great with him, and he was wonderful helping me out with labor and my recovery. It is so sweet watching him hold and sing to the baby. My heart has grown so much in the last day, it is really unbelievable. We are so blessed, and we thank God for this healthy, beautiful baby boy!! He looks exactly like Frank did as a baby. Such a cutie!!!