My name is Jeff Hauser and my wife Lauren and I are brand new parents. I will fast forward through the whole "this is how we met" and just say that we were married 9/07. Lauren is without a doubt the best thing that has ever happened to me. I have to admit that our relationship is better than I ever thought was possible to have. While yes, we are deeply in love and have a great marriage, (while this is cliche) she is my best friend. We have a way of interacting with each other that is effortless. We have great fun together and she is the most important person in my life.
Sam was born today, about 16 hours ago at 4:23am. She was 8.4 #, and was 20 inches long.
This was a very long and exhausting process. We originally thought Lauren was going into labor Tuesday (6/9) afternoon. This tended to be a false alarm and we woke up Wednesday (yesterday, 6/10) not really expecting much. I know Lauren wasn't felling well Wednesday but I really didn't think anything was wrong. I thought she was suffering from the general "I am sick of being pregnant" feeling. We went about our business Wednesday and went to work. I had a meeting Wednesday morning and returned to my office around 11am and Lauren said she wasn't feeling well and was leaving work at 11:30. Again, at this point I had no clue labor was soon (to be interrupted lightly). Lauren calls me at 11:30 crying, saying she felt terrible and was sitting in my company parking lot as she didn't want to drive home. I run outside to her car and she is on hold w/ her Dr. I went back to work to button up a few things to be prepared to jet out. She called me 5 mins later saying "We have to go to the hospital now!".
Fast forward an hour later and we are at Riverside and they tell us "you will be having a baby today...12-16 hours from now". Now, since everyone tells you there is plenty of time once labor starts to get to hospital, we had none of our stuff we needed. Laurens Mom Tina came to hospital to sit w/ Lauren while I ran home to get our hospital gear and drop one of our dogs off to Nick and Mandy's (Laurens Brother and Sister in Law).
Keep in mind, this is Wednesday 6/10 at 3:30pm and I am thinking this baby is coming out NOW!!!
I get back to the hospital in a panic and finally start to relax. The nurse comes in and breaks Lauren's water and she is doing really well at this point. Not in too much pain and in very good spirits. Lauren continues to labor slowly and is managing the pain well. However, due to Sam's heart dipping occasionally, Lauren cannot get out of bed and walk around, be active etc to help speed up this process.
It was about 6pm when Lauren started to get really uncomfortable and asked for the epidural. Lauren was super tough during the procedure and took it really well. Once that kicked in, that is where the real fun began.
Here's an important note...woman in labor, LOVE epidurals. She was laughing and joking and we had a lot of fun just hanging out as weird as that sounds. We continued to talk and just hang out. My parents, Tina and Mandy were in the labor room with us. I know this may sound weird, but Lauren was just laying in bed, no pushing had begun so it was like a little party.
Every 2 hours the nurse would come in and check Lauren and she would slightly increase in dilation. Finally, at 2am we got the green light to start pushing.
2:25 am - Active Labor begins and Lauren starts pushing. The nurse said, "this kid has a lot of hair...". At one point, I got behind the nurse and just saw a head full of black hair getting ready to peak out... I said it looked like a magic 8 ball was logged somewhere it didn't belong...:) More pushing, more Lauren being a real champ and more anticipation of meeting our baby girl.
Samantha was born at 4:23 am on 6/11. So, quick summary...Lauren and I have been awake for 22 hours at this point, we're exhausted but have this beautiful baby girl now.
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