I can’t believe how fast the last two weeks have gone by. It was just yesterday that I thought I would be pregnant FOREVER and this guy would never make an appearance, and now we could not imagine life without him. Here is a little bit about how he came into the world…

Canaan’s birth was the complete opposite of Oliver’s birth. This is a very good thing since I labored with Oli for about 12 hours. I was at a wedding (as a guest) the Saturday night before Canaan was born celebrating friends and even doing a little dancing, but I felt no signs that he might soon be on the way. But at 3:30am Sunday morning I woke up from a dream that I was feeling pain and in fact I was, about every 7-10 minutes to be exact. I woke Matt up and we timed the contractions for a short while. I came to the conclusion that although the contractions seemed regular, they were not painful enough to get me out to bed so I would just go back to sleep and if they continued I would know it was the real thing. I only got about 30 more minutes of sleep and things were definitely getting worse. I woke Matt up again about 5:15am and by this time I knew we would be headed to the hospital at some point. My contractions were definitely 5 minutes apart lasting for a minute or longer, so we decided if they continued at this rate by 6am we would call my midwife. At 5:58am I couldn’t bare to be in the bed any longer so I went ahead and got up to take a shower and get ready for the hospital. You may be wondering why we weren’t in a huge hurry, but my labor with Oli was so slow that I just had it in my head to take it slow so I would not get to the hospital too early. Matt called the OB office and let them know what was going on with my labor. About 6:30am I got a call back from my midwife, she asked me a few more questions and seeing that I could not talk during contractions (only breathe through them) she told me we needed to leave for the hospital NOW and that 2nd babies come lots faster. Matt was in the shower at this time so I let him know that they wanted us to go to the hospital immediately. We still had a few packing things to do as well as get Oliver’s carseat in my mom’s car but we finally made it out about 7am. At this point the contractions very intense and I told Matt that it would be a dream come true to be 7cm when we got to the hospital but I was probably about a 5. We arrived and were checked in by 7:30am and the nurse soon let me know that I was in fact 7cm! Some of you may know that we had a natural birth plan for Oli, but I ended up needing the epidural at 9cm because of the long labor and Oliver’s loss of oxygen toward the end. I was not dead set on a natural this time because I knew how my last one went, but when I saw how fast the labor was going, I knew we could do it this time which was very exciting for me. It was only an hour and a half of laboring until I had reached 10cm and was ready to push. Pushing was the only thing I had not felt with Oli and so this was going to be new for me and boy was it difficult! We soon learned when Canaan was born after about 30 minutes of pushing that things were so difficult because Canaan was 1.5 lbs larger than Oliver and 2 inches longer! He was born at 8:58am. I am so thankful that Canaan’s birth could be natural although I still say labor is one of worst things ever. But as my Memaw told me, and this will always stick- ‘Labor pains are some of the easiest pains to forget’. SO true, I forget more and more every time look at this sweet face.

Oli has done amazing with his little brother. I was very concerned that he would get jealous and act out toward Canaan but I can honestly say that he has so much love for his brother already. He has kissed Canaan  more than any of the rest of us combined and when C cries, Oli takes him whatever he thinks might make him feel better whether it’s toys, paci’s or anything else. Here is Oli meeting Canaan for the first time. Melt my heart…

This baby has been so precious to me. He slept 5hrs the 3rd night he was home and has really had no trouble as of yet adjusting to life outside the womb as of yet. My entire pregnancy I struggled with feelings that I would love Oliver more b/c I couldn’t imagine loving another baby as much as I love him. But just because I couldn’t imagine it does not mean it was there, now I have TWO that I love this much.

God has truly been good to us.