Mr. Henry Scott Eckern

Little Henry is 5 weeks tomorrow! WOOT WOOT!  What a big little boy:)  I decide I had better write the story of his birth on here so everyone can know what a crazy time it's been.  I don't feel guilty in the least that it's taken this long for me to write about it... in fact I'm actually quite impressed with myself under the circumstances:)

On Monday, December 16th, 2013 I woke up at around 5AM and started having contractions.  I went in the other room to wait a while and time them to make sure I was really going into labor before waking up Erik.  I called my mom and told her what was going on cause I really wasn't sure how to know if I was really having contractions or if it was something else.  As you can guess, my mom was pretty excited and told me it was only a matter of time before little Henry would be here! :)

Some important things to know about that week:  First of all, it was finals week for both Erik and myself.  I had a finals on Tuesday and Erik had finals on Thursday. (I ended up missing my finals, but I still passed the classes so it's all good... Erik had to leave the hospital on the second day we were there for a few hours to go take his final... he did awesome and we decided Heavenly Father was looking out for us cause Erik really hadn't had time to study at all for his final and he still aced it!)  On top of that we had scheduled a moving truck for Monday morning so that we could move out of our apartment and into our new one.  We figured that it would probably take a while for Henry to be born since it was my first baby so we decided to just go ahead with our plans and play it by ear.  We still had to pack a little before people showed up to help us move, so we left early to get everything ready.  A couple of days before I had asked people to help us move and we didn't really have a lot of people who could, but the day of when everyone found out that I was going into labor we had A TON of people show up and it only took us about a half hour to get everything packed.  So that worked out pretty well:)  

After everything was packed we decided to go to the hospital and see how close I was.  I was pretty sure I wasn't ready yet but the contractions were getting closer and I wanted to go just in case.  They told me that I was only dilated to a one and an hour later I was only at a one and a half so they sent us home.  The nurse told me she thought I'd be back later that night or early the next morning.  We decided we better stay at our apartment to be close to the hospital even though we didn't have any of our stuff... including a bed.  So, Erik's parents brought us an air mattress and some things we'd need and then Erik's dad drove our moving truck to our new apartment where our family unloaded everything for us!  We are seriously so lucky to have so many people willing to help us... I don't know what we would have done without everyones help! The day before Erik and I were planning on moving everything in all by ourselves, I'm really glad it worked out that we didn't have to do that!

That night we tried to just go to bed but I kept waking up from painful contractions and I finally told Erik it was hurting to bad and we better go back to the hospital.  I was sure that it must be time now since my contractions were hurting so bad, but they told me I was still only dilated at one! (which is extra dumb since the nurse had said one and a half by the time I left the last time!)  So, they gave me some medication so I would be able to hopefully get some sleep and they sent us home again.  I did get some sleep but when I woke up the next morning my contractions were back to how they had been at the beginning of the previous day! :(  I was pretty discouraged to be a square one again after feeling so close the day before.  But, we decided to make the most of it and try to get some things done and enjoy the day.  We went onto BYU campus and walked around for a while, sold some books back, and got lunch.  Then we went to Walmart and got the oil changed in the car and walked around some more.  Then we went back to our empty apartment while I walked back and forth and watched Netflix on Erik's computer.  

I was trying to wait as long as I could to go back to the hospital because I didn't want us to get sent home again.  Around 8PM I was in more pain than the night before and decided we better go to the hospital, even if it was just to get some medicine again so I could sleep.  My contractions were hurting so bad and I was so worried that they'd say I was still at a one and then we would just repeat what had happened the night before:/  But this time the nurse told me I was dilated at a four! Halle-freakin-lujah!  Haha, I was pretty dang excited to know that Henry was on his way! They gave me an epidural (again, Hallelujah!) and I fell asleep for a few hours.  I woke up a while later and they said we needed to wait a little bit longer and then I could start to push.  Around 3AM they started me pushing and at 3:56 little Henry Scott Eckern was born, 7 lbs 7 oz and 19.5 inches long with a whole lot of hair! :)  He was so perfect and everyone agreed that, other than his cone head, he was definitely the cutest baby they'd ever seen:)  

He had a lot of happy visitors... Amanda was especially to see her new cousin, she put on a special outfit and  everything:) He was quite spoiled the first couple of weeks because we were staying at Erik's parents house.  His head hardly ever touched his bed:)

He was a very calm newborn and was just as sweet as can be:)  He is still as sweet as can be but is already a lot more active:)  At his 2 week checkup our doctor said he was surprisingly alert for his age.  He had gained a pound and grown two inches. He is a very tall and skinny baby, poor thing is to tall for all the clothes that fit him everywhere else:)  From day one everyone thought he looked like Erik, but he looks more and more like his daddy everyday... needless to say, he's a pretty handsome little fella:)

To sum up, we moved, had a baby, and graduated all in one week! It was a pretty crazy week but it was one of the happiest of my life and it just keeps getting better every day! :)