I know I know its been 2 weeks since our little boy has been with us and I havent even had a chance to get on here and tell the story..........so here it goes. It was a cold winter day.... :) just kidding, it was easter day, the 12th, I was a little less than 2 weeks away from my due date and all day long things were just starting to happen inside of me, I just knew things were going to happen very soon. Everything inside of me was telling me this baby was coming and coming soon, I was cramping all day, in and out of the bathroom ALLLLLLL day, and were not talking #1 either ;) I was completely exhausted from doing absolutely nothing. Probably the last month luke had told me he wanted the baby to be born on the 13th, his birthday is february 13th and his jersey number is 13 so we look at that number as a lucky number, were not into the whole "friday the 13th" bad luck thing cuz afterall luke was also born on a friday. Even when we had a tour of the hospital a week before I had the baby the gal giving the tour pointed out to us "notice how our rooms go from number 12 to number `14" We both laughed and told her we wanted our baby to come on the 13th :) Anyways easter night rolls around and we had just gotten back from the grocery store, all throughout the store i was having "contractions" but at the time I just thought I was cramping, I thought this must be normal towards the end of pregnancy to get these cramps......um ya I was having contractions in all the aisles while picking out cereal and granola bars, see they werent really intense though so I wasnt too worried, I just thought to myself this is what it must feel like for women who get cramps during their periods. So we got home and I called my mom, I started to tell her all the things that were happening that day, when I was done explaining everything she said something along the lines of "your going to have this baby and Im going to miss it" She told me then that I was probably having light contractions, at that point it sunk in, I knew without a doubt in my mind that this baby was coming so I told her to find a flight out to milwaukee. When i got off the phone we immediatly started packing and getting everything ready, we were both super excited and luke was running around the house like a mad man getting things situated. All night we stayed up and timed my contractions, called the doctor a few times who kept telling us to stay home until things progressed, which was fine with me I was comfortable at home. The night just seemed to fly by, luke was interviewing me on his little flip camera most of the night, which was kind of funny and looking back at it Im glad he did. At about 5am my contractions were about 2 minutes apart and lasting about 60 seconds, we then decided to hit the road since the hospital was about 25 minutes away. So we grabbed our things, said by to the pups and hit the road. We got to the hospital and they must not have believed me that I was going into labor because I was really calm and still smiling, so they checked me out, asked me a million questions and finally checked to see if I was dialated which i was at 4 cm. So they then admitted me to delivery at around 8am........ok Im gonna speed things up cuz baby boy is grunting and might be waking up sooon........broke my water at around 9:30, had intense back labor which the nurse continually would tell me "this is the worse kind of labor, it will be very hard to deliver this baby if he doesnt turn his face", she might have asked me 20 times if I wanted an epidural and I kept telling her no thank you, I wanted to have this baby natural and feel every bit of him coming out of me, sounds crazy to some but I knew God was going to bless every bit of my labor, fear and doubt never crept in and for the most part I felt very relaxed, yeah the back labor got pretty intense at times but I knew god would be faithful. So at around 12 pm the baby's face finally turned, after being on my hands and knees, sitting on a exercise ball and sitting on the toilet he finally turned, we kept praying he would turn before I got to 10 cm and he DID :) Luke was incredible, I knew he was going to be a rock and calm and encouraging but he really amazed me, he was digging his knee into my back for probably 2 hours to help with the contractions, giving me little bites of ice chips, telling me how good i was doing. So yah baby finally turned his face and I told the nurse "ok i feel like im gonna poop my pants or push this baby out" So she told me to get off the toilet and get back in bed. This is where things just got exciting, in the midst of my contractions I started to get an energy rush, I knew it was time and in minutes we were going to be face to face with our little angel. The doctor was scrubing up, they were getting the sturups ready, luke went and grabbed his flip camera and filmed a few minutes of everyone getting ready, she checkd my cervix and I was 10 cm dialated. I would say I pushed for around 15 minutes, maybe less....maybe more Im not really sure, it seemed to fly by but at 12:41 I gave the final push and our baby boy......Traden Lukas Ridnour was born. Screaming and squirming in all of his glory the doctor asked if I wanted to hold him or have him cleaned up first.......I said "yah you better clean him up first" hah :) there was such an amazing joy that came over my entire body, it all seemed to happen so fast and to be honest I would do ANYTHING in this world to go back to that day and do it all over again just to feel what I felt in those moments. The contractions, the back labor, the pushing......all of it, it is so worth it when you see your baby for the first time and get to hold him, its something I will always remember. It is such a miracle and we are so incredibly grateful for this amazing gift god has given us, he truly is a little angel. He weighed in at 6 lbs 14.6 ounces and was 19 3/4 inches long, born with a full head of hair (just like me) but came out looking like lukes twin. Oh ya if your wondering why we chose the name traden, let me explain. Back in august the day we found out luke was finally getting traded we found out I was pregnant within the same hour, talk about a crazy day........so we thought it would be fun to name him Traden Lukas Ridnour, it will be a fun little story for him to always remember and certainly for us to remember that insane day our world completely flipped upside down. So now its been 2 weeks and 2 days, traden is doing wonderfly, he had some jaundice the first week but we did some light therapy and that cleared up right away, other than that he has been nothing but a joy to our family, my dad got to fly out and my mom was here the day he was born, she missed the birth but still got to see him not even a day old :) Were still in milwaukee trying to pack up and get out of here so we can bring him home and show him off to all our family & friends. So there it is, my labor story. I loved being pregnant and I loved giving birth......now we begin our life as 3 :) I will put some pictures up of a newborn photo session, he was nice and milk drunk so the lady put him in all sorts of little positiions. It was pretty fun, here are a few though. Love you all, and hope to see you all this summer!!!!! Kate, Luke & Traden
