Late afternoon on Saturday, Aug. 16th, Kelly began to feel contractions. At first the contractions were inconsistently 8 to 20 minutes apart. Within a few hours the contractions were 5 to 8 minutes apart. We decided to call the "baby line" to ask a "qualified" nurse if we should go to the hospital. They said, "wait until the contractions are consistently 5 minutes apart for an hour, then call back." Within 20 minutes, the contractions were 3 to 5 minutes apart. At that point we started to get very nervous. We called Kelly's mom, Barb, to come over to watch Cassy. We called the baby line again and explained the situation and told them we were going to the hospital. The said, "I hope they don't send you home." That was just before 8:00.
We arrived at the hospital at about 8:20. Kelly was evaluated and determined to be well into labor. We were soon escorted to a birthing room where we requested an epidural and Kelly was given an IV. Kelly was having painful contractions by this point, but the IV bag needed to empty before the epidural could be administered. At about 9:40 the epidural was successfully completed and Kelly was feeling no pain. At about 9:45 with Kelly feeling "comfortable", I decided to go down to the main level of the hospital to use my cell phone to call my parents to inform them of our situation. I explained to them that the baby should be born within a few hours. Little did I know that as I was talking to them, the doctor was explaining to Kelly that it was time to deliver the baby. She called to inform me. I ran as fast as I could to get back to the delivery room. At 10:19 he was born.
He is named after my father, Robert, and Kelly's father, Allen.
-Bryan
