Our Newest Addition

So this is the post that you probably all have been waiting for most of all....me especially. The month of July has been one of tension and waiting for this newest one to come. I must admit that of all my pregnancies this one has been the most stressful last few weeks of them all. For those that don't know the whole story, here it is (abreviated a bit of course).....I had a doctor's visit in June in which we discovered that this baby was transverse (meaning that instead of being head down ready for delivery, our head was up, but worse still our butt wasn't even presenting...we were sitting sideways). This is hard news for any women to take, but for me it was worse because of my previous birth history and my commitment to not have another c-section if I could help it. So with our doctor's advise and my desire to not have another c-section we proceeded with first waiting to see if the baby would turn on its' own (see I am going to keep you in suspense until the story unfolds as to what we have). After 2 weeks of waiting and no turning we decided that we needed to try something else. We scheduled a day for an external version (they would turn the baby for us). For those who have never had to do this, I really don't recommend having it done, but it is worth a shot at having a natural delivery vs a c-section. So we went in for the version and very easily were able to have the baby turned. But as we were getting ready to go home, the doctor discovered that the baby had turned back....so we tried again...this time got the baby turned and to stay a little closer to where it should be. Then we wait some more. I had thought that because the last few children were early that this would be the case this time, but it wasn't to be that way. Each visit brought a little good news in that the baby was still head down, but disappointment in that delivery wasn't looking like it was coming any closer. On the night of the 17th I really thought that we were going to have a baby as I started contracting. After 4 hrs at home we headed to the hospital where we spent another 4 hrs coming home with nothing.....no baby and not a single contraction more. At my last doctor's visit on the 20th, I discovered that I was now 5 cm dialated, but still nothing by way of contractions. Then that night I started contracting again. This time we waited to see how things would play out. It was starting to look promising. On our way to the hospital the contractions started to slow down and I started to think that we were going to be sent home. Thankfully we weren't and thing started to pick up. We were finally able to meet our newest little on at 6:32 AM on July 21. He (yes, I said he) weighed in at 8 lbs and 1/2 ounce and measured 19 1/2 inches long. Since we had no idea he was a boy, we had no names. Gabe had been asked to take a load of girls to Girl's Camp that morning, so he left me there with no names for our baby. We didn't have a chance to pick one until 7:30 that night when Gabe was able to come back and see us. We finally decided on James Roy, after lengthy discussions. So we were finally able to welcome James Roy Castro into our home. We are thankful that he is here and healthy.