Axel James Mead has arrived!

On Saturday the 17th, we were making ourselves laugh by trying everything possible to induce labor. I walked the mall for an hour including 40 flights of stairs, accupuncture-where he performed pulse therapy and told us within 1-2 days and he was right!, castor oil was on the list but wasn't brave enough to try that. I had a pedicure the day before, and bowling was scheduled for Saturday but I was too sore and tired from the stairs. On Sunday morning I felt sick and flu-like or like I was having the worst period ever. I talked to a friend that said that meant the baby was coming within 24 hours-she was right too!

Sunday night around 11:40pm, the contractions were going strong and got stronger when I stood up and walked around. That was the last symptom we were waiting on to know that I was in true labor. I timed them for 40 minutes and they were 4-5 minutes apart. I woke up Tom and said, "Get ready, we are leaving!" and he asked if I wanted him to time contractions and I said, "No need, I already have been for 40 minutes and this is the real thing". We got to the hospital around 1am. I was asking for an epidural and the check in nurse was skeptical I was really in labor since this was my first birth. Tom says I was persistent and firm on the epidural haha. He was cracking up. I ended up getting an epidural at 2:30am and that was heaven! Don't know how anyone has a baby without that epidural. My contractions starting slowing down so I got to sleep around 10 hours which was great since I hadn't slept the two previous nights. I started pushing around 2pm and Axel arrived at 2:45 at 9 lbs. and 23 inches long. His conehead was huge! By Friday he was 22.5 inches long which is still so long, it's crazy. He is perfectly healthy and we feel so incredibly blessed to have our two, beautiful healthy boys. Glad to be home and so grateful Aunt Janet has been in town to help us with Austin. She stepped in as my mom has passed away and Tom's mom is serving a mission in the Ukraine and was unable to be with us. Life is great!