Ryder Ricks

Early this morning at 4:16 AM, our sweet little boy was born. 

He weighs 6 pounds 10 ounces and is 19.5 inches long.

After he was born, Brad and I spent some time thinking of what to name him and finally decided on Ryder Ricks. Ricks is Brad's Mother's maiden name and Brad's middle name. One of the meanings of Ryder is 'messenger'. I have no doubt that little Ryder is our sweet little messenger of love straight from Brad's mom.

 We are so grateful and happy he is here! He is such a sweet little boy.

His arrival was much different than that of Kade or Tenley. I woke up at 12:45 with intense contractions lasting longer than a minute about 5 minutes apart. I called the doctor an hour after they started and they recommended that I wait another hour to be sure it was real labor. So I took a shower to see if that might help relieve the pain, but the contraction kept coming just as frequently and strongly as they had before. I finally started packing my bags for the hospital even though I really hoped I could last until 6 or 7 am so I could avoid waking up my husband and calling to wake up a friend to come to our house. But by 2:30 I knew we needed to go. Brad woke up and got ready to go and my sweet friend Danielle was here by 3 AM to take care of our sleeping kids.

On the way to the hospital the contractions started getting closer together and more intense. Every little bump Brad hit in the road made me more uncomfortable and I tried to get him to run the red lights so we could get there faster. We arrived at the hospital at 3:30 and Brad dropped me off at the front door and then went and parked the car. A sweet nurse took me up to triage in a wheel chair and as I was checking in at the front desk a really powerful contraction came and the nurse held my hair back as I threw up in the garbage can. They got me in a room and undressed pretty quickly after that and the doctor came and checked me and said that I was dilated to a 5, so I figured we had plenty of time to get an epidural and maybe even some rest before Ryder arrived.

They wheeled me into a labor and delivery room and a few minutes later the anesthesiologist arrived and started my epidural. By this point though the contractions were less than a minute apart and he didn't have a lot of time to get the epidural ready. When he was ready to finally get the medicine going I had a really strong contraction that broke my water and I felt little Ryder coming! I was a little nervous by this point. I had not planned on giving birth naturally. The doctor ran in and said that in one to two minutes the baby would be here. Sure enough, about a minute later I was holding our sweet little boy. Needless to say, I was in a shock. I couldn't believe how quickly it had all happened and the intense feeling of giving birth naturally. It was a huge adrenaline rush and I felt so good!

I got to hold sweet little Ryder for two hours after that just bonding with him. It was an amazing and sweet experience and I'm so glad he got here safely and is a healthy strong boy.

We've been cuddling and staring at each other all day since. And taking naps! 

I love our little Ryder Ricks!