Huffman Happenings: Hello there Owen Patrick!

Owen Patrick joined the world on July 12th at 9:26 p.m. Weighing in at 7 lbs. 11 oz. and 19.5 inches long. He made his way quickly and quietly. This was definitely the easiest labor by far and faster as well. I told Dane if it keeps getting easier with each kid then the 4th would be no problem at all! But 3 boys are just plenty!!! I'd told myself that he probably wasn't going to be coming early. I really only had a few sporadic braxton hicks contractions and even when I'd go walking or be really active I didn't have a whole lot going on. I also figured I'd be late because my previous doctor would induce once you hit 39 weeks and Kaiser won't until you reach 41 weeks. I wasn't induced with my previous pregnancies but figured since I'd have to wait so long that's what would happen. Of course though as all babies do this guy had other plans. I was just sitting watching TV around 3:45 while Carter and Landon were napping when I suddenly heard a pop. I thought my water had possibly broken but all that really happened was just the noise. So I sat there for about 10 more minutes and nothing seemed to be going on much to my disappointment. I figured I'd better get up and get some stuff done while the boys were sleeping and as I started moving around I quickly realized that my water had in fact broken. I called Dane (who luckily was working at Consilium that day and wasn't on shift at the fire house) and called my dad. Dane headed home, my dad picked up my mom and they made their way up to watch the boys. I also called Leanne put her on "stand by." Dane got home and we gathered all our stuff and got ready to go. Logan and Larkin came over to play with the boys because Carter was pretty set on wanting to go with us - until Logan came over then he quickly forgot about it. So off Dane and I went to Sky Ridge. As we were driving my contractions started to get stronger and come about every 5 minutes. We got all checked in at the hospital around 5:30 and I was 4-5 cm, finally got into our room around 6:30 and had my mom and Leanne join us around 7 or so. My contractions continued to get stronger and when the nurse checked me around 8 I was still only about 5 cm. Since I was only half way there we figured we'd have a while until the baby was born. Dane and Leanne were getting kind of restless so they went to walk around the hospital. Around 8:45 I had a couple strong contractions that were only about 2 minutes apart and I suddenly really, really wanted to push. I had my mom call the nurse to see if anything was going on and as she checked me she frantically said, "DO NOT PUSH! This baby is here. Where's your husband???" My mom started to trying to track down Leanne and Dane, the nurse quickly started to get stuff ready (she hadn't started preparing since only an hour prior I'd been 5 cm), and I had to sit there for about 1/2 hour and not push. That might have been the worst part about it was I had to wait while they got ready and wait for the doctor to get there. Dane finally made it back to the room, the doctor got there and we started to push at 9:21 and at 9:26, Owen entered the world. He was so calm and alert - it was pretty amazing. I was so happy with how easily everything went and was thrilled that our little boy had finally come!

Last picture of the belly