Josiah Robert Lobaugh

He is here. And I am absolutely in love with my beautiful red- headed Saint Patrick's baby.

Josiah Robert Lobaugh was born at 5:44pm on Tuesday, March 17th, A Saint Patrick's baby. He weighed 8 pounds at birth and measured 20 inches long.

For those of you who are detail people here are the nitty gritty details of Josiah's arrival.

At about 4:00AM on Monday, I began to get steady painful contractions. At 8AM, I called my doctor and was advised to go to Prenatal Observations. Of course, as soon as I asked what we should do, my contractions had stopped. So Jermaine and I went to our 10:30 doctor's appointment with our bags packed and in the car, "just in case." At 40 weeks and 6 days, I was still only 50% effaced, not dilated and Josiah hadn't dropped yet. So we went back home. But with a plan to bring Josiah into the world. We were going to come in on Tuesday evening to begin a process to help me dilate and then I would be induced on Wednesday morning.

At home, my contractions began to come back steadily. By 2AM On Tuesday, my contractions were developing a pattern of three strong ones back to back and then another about 5 minutes later. We finally decided to go to the hospital at about 3AM.

We were admitted to the hospital this time. Praise God. I had dilated to a 1 and was almost completely effaced, but Josiah still hadn't dropped. At 8AM, I had dilated to a 3. At 10 AM I was still a 3 so the doctor decided to start me on Potosin (spelling) in order to get me further a long. At about the same time I decided to go a head and get an epidural, because I was still in the pattern of three back to back very painful contractions and then another a few minutes later. (I cried when they put in the epidural. It was much more painful than the contractions I was feeling.) I dilated to a 6 with the help of the Potosin, but my contraction pattern wasn't any better and Josiah heart rate had started to drop. Also, every nurse I had that day, I think I had 5 total, kept commenting on how narrow I was. So putting all of those things together, the doctor decided that it was time for a c-section. At the rate I was going Josiah was not able to drop and was becoming a little distressed in the process.

I was prepared for a c-section and Jermaine got to put on the blue scrubs at about 5:30PM on Tuesday. By 5:44, Josiah was born. And the rest of the story is just Jermaine and I falling in love with our beautiful son. Hopefully, I will be released from the hospital on Friday morning. I am not in a lot of pain, which is wonderful. It could also be the drugs they keep letting me take. But I am up walking around with very little difficulty. And they have finally let me eat real food, which is absolutely wonderful. Because I am hungry.