introducing...

Cohen Bennett Maurer! Cohen was born at 7:10am on Thursday, August 12th, 2010. The name Cohen means "priest," and the name Bennett means, "blessed little one."

I really want to get Cohen's birth story in writing before I start to forget details, so I hope you don't mind if I post it here. Fair warning - this will be filled with all sorts of gross details. Feel free to stop reading if you're squeamish.

I had what felt like an extra cranky day yesterday (Wednesday), and when I tried to explain it to Shawn, I really couldn't. I knew I was uncomfortable and hot, I knew I was tired of the waiting game, and I knew the fear of postpartum depression was looming over me, but I just couldn't articulate why my day was so rough. As you might've read from my previous post, Jude knew exactly what I needed and managed to melt away all of those issues with just one hug and two kisses.

Shawn came home from church, and while we tried our best to stay up for our favorite Wednesday night show (Psych), we both decided to call it a night around 10:15. At exactly 3:33 (I remember looking at the clock), I woke up with a contraction much stronger than any of the others I'd been feeling. I laid in bed until a second one passed (about ten minutes later), and then got up to see if emptying my bladder would help. Once I crawled back into bed, I felt two more within about fifteen minutes and they were strong enough that I needed to move to my side and kind of groan through them.

Shawn has never let me forget that I labored for a little over an hour with Jude while he slept soundly, so per his request I made sure I woke up him to tell him that I was going to start timing them. I was trying to not jump the gun, but I knew that these were very different and I had a gut feeling that we'd end up in labor that night. I timed the contractions for about forty minutes, and they were coming at about every 5-7 minutes. They quickly turned to contractions that made me stop what I was doing and do a kind of breathing/groaning thing.

These contractions were a bit different than my ones with Jude. With Jude, the contractions were one on top of each other immediately, and I never really got much of a break in between. In fact, when the contractions DID take a break, my stomach was so sore that I was still in pain. My contractions with Cohen were intense while I was having them, but I felt perfectly normal once they stopped. In fact, I had a bit of an inward battle going. When I wasn't contracting, I was thinking, "I might be blowing this out of proportion. I feel just fine, I have a feeling we have plenty of time." Then when the contraction hit I thought, "Oh, heck no! This is some serious junk!"

So I woke Shawn up (who I think had probably been mostly awake, waiting on me to either come back to bed or tell him we needed to leave), and told him that I thought he had time to grab a quick shower. While Shawn showered, I packed the last few things for my bag, made the bed, and cleaned up the house. Shawn made fun of me -especially when I started cleaning the kitchen sink - but when I was feeling good I wanted to keep myself busy to keep my mind off of the pain. When I had a contraction, I would lean over either our bed or the kitchen table and rest my head in my forearms. I would sway a little bit and groan a low groan while Shawn rubbed my lower back. After about a minute, I'd feel like nothing had just happened and would go about getting things ready.

Shawn called Katie to come and stay with Jude, and I called Rhonda to meet us at the hospital. I still felt like we probably had plenty of time and wasn't very worried about getting there quickly. Shawn and I peeked in on Jude one last time, whispered our "I love yous," and headed off.

I'd like to complete this story in one go round, but it looks like Cohen has woken up! I'll be back to finish the story, I promise (and yes...the gross stuff is still to come).