On Wednesday, February 20th, I began having contractions. Contractions continued Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Saturday evening around 1:30 am the contractions woke me up. They continued to be 5 minutes apart until 3:00 am. At this time we called in backup. Adrienne came to stay with the kids and Amy met us at the hospital in West Point. Unfortunately, the contractions slowed down and even stopped. I went home around 7:00 am, very disappointed.
Over the next few days I continued to teach Zumba, go to the gym, walk and do the elliptical machine. Nothing seemed to change. On Sunday, March 3rd, I felt a few changes in my body. That afternoon I decided to walk outside. 40 degrees felt quite nice. By this point I had chosen to be at peace with the fact that this baby would come when he was ready and may not be early like Audrey
and Alexander.
Sunday evening Adam and I watched the first episode of The Bible. After going to bed later than expected I continued to sing the worship songs in my head from church that morning. At exactly 11:00pm, I felt a large gush. I woke Adam, who had been asleep just a few minutes. This was just how it was with Audrey and Alexander's arrival. I texted a few people to see who we could get to keep the kids. Lorie came to stay with the kids. Bethany was working and unable to join us at the hospital. We had Amy on stand by, ready to come to the hospital once we were certain we were staying this time.
I continued to leak fluid, making me a little more confident labor was real this time. I hadn't had any contractions yet, so I was still reluctant it was another false alarm. 
When we arrived at the hospital we picked up a few contractions on the monitor and tested to make sure my water had broken. I was thankful to see these signs of progress. I was 3-4 centimeters dilated at this time. We called Amy and she headed on to the hospital. Contractions picked up slowly and I continued to be fairly comfortable and able to move around and walk. By 3:30 or 4:00 contractions had strengthened. Being in bed was more uncomfortable, so I sat over the side of the bed with my head on Adam's chest. Amy rubbed my back through each contraction. As contractions strengthened I began to become concerned if my pain tolerance would continue through delivery. Even though the pain was manageable, I chose to get a dose of stadol. Stadol had been my source of pain relief with Alexander and Audrey. It was much more effective with Alexander than Audrey.
By 5:00am I was ready to push. I didn't feel I had the strength to push. I couldn't get my body in position and didn't feel confident it was going to be a quick process like Audrey. Owen arrived at 5:14am after about 15 minutes of pushing. After delivery we were informed that Owen had experienced shoulder dystocia. His shoulder had gotten stuck under my pelvic bone. This caused tremendous pain with pushing and could have been very serious for Owen. Thankfully, the doctor was able to turn his shoulder and get him out without a great deal of struggle. He didn't experience any negative effects of the shoulder dystocia other than a few bruises and delay in cord clamping. The delay did cause him to have some jaundice.
Owen was perfect. We were thrilled. He weighed 8 pounds 1 ounce and was 21 1/2 inches long. I couldn't believe he was the biggest baby of the three. I thought he was going to be the smallest.
Alexander and Audrey came to see Owen a little later that morning. They were both thrilled with him. They spoke so sweetly to him. Our family was complete.
1 Samuel 1:27
