Caeden Silas McInnis is here!

Hello all! Alright, here is the belated post about the birth of our son, Caeden Silas McInnis. Becca and I were called by Rex Hospital on Wednesday night (October 3) at about 8:45 and told to come in around 9:30. When we got there they gave her some medicine to get her ready to deliver and some ambien to sleep- which she did very very well.

The next day at 7am they started her on pitocen. Around 12:30pm they broke her water and the contractions got very intense and painful. It was really hard to see her in that much pain. Around 3pm they gave Bec the epidural (a much more painful process than I or Bec thought it would be) and after that kicked in she slept for about an hour. She slowly progressed all day until she was finally 10 cm dilated around 11pm... about 16 hours after the pitocen started. She started pushing around 11:15pm and she made some great progress for the first hour... the next two hours of pushing were not very productive because Caeden was stuck on Bec's pelvic bone. Around 2am the doctor asked us for the second time if we wanted her to use a vacuum to help get him out. After asking for her opinion we opted to do it. In a matter of five minutes, an additional five nurses entered the room and the doctor suited up in plastic scrubs as the nurses converted the bed. It was intense and Bec and I were amazed at how quickly things seemed to be moving. Things went from moving so slowly to moving quicker than we were comfortable with. The vacuum wasn't like we were thinking it would be. We were expecting an electric machine of some sort. A better description of it would be a suction cup with a cord attached to it. While Becca pushed the Doctor pulled the cord and 10 minutes later Caeden was born. This was the worst pain that Bec felt the entire day.

Initially, Caeden got a 1 on the APGAR but five minutes later he got an 8. They had thought he had a fever at first but it turns out he did not have a fever. But they let him recover in the nursery just to be safe. He was brought into our room around 5am. It was a hard delivery for Bec but God was gracious and faithful and sustained her through it all. We are so thankful to Him!

As I write this Caeden is now about 3 hours short of being 4 days old. It's really incredible to see how much he has changed just in that amount of time- but more amazing is how much Bec and I have changed. Our prayer going into the delivery was that God would show His power through Bec. That He would help her to push when her strength ran out. As I mentioned before, God proved to be faithful. I could see Him working through Bec. She was so calm and did not complain much about pain. It was a great testimony to the faithfulness of a good God who hears our prayers and delivers us.

The amazing thing is that after God proved His faithfulness I began to doubt and forget that He is not only Becca's keeper during delivery, He is Caeden's keeper- not me. I was so nervous about Caeden's health and whether or not we could really take care of him. What a terrible shift. To go from trust and praise to fear and doubt. I am thankful that the Lord has shown me this. The Lord watches Caeden with a vigilance that I cannot comprehend. He doesn't just watch Caeden's breathing- He sustains it. What a weight off of my back when I trust the Lord.
The whole process was pretty intense and incredible. The rush of emotions are difficult to describe. But we are so so thankful to our faithful, powerful, and sustaining God for all HE has done during this process.