Jon & Emmalee Day Family: Labor of Love: Colton Jonathan Day

Here it is, the story of how one day our lives changed forever. Here is the story of Colton's birth.

On July 8, 2011, Jon and I's lives changed forever. Colton Jonathan Day was born at 11:24 am in the American Fork Hospital, American Fork, Utah. Born at 6 lbs 14 ounces, 19.5 inches long, our little miracle was born with a head full of strawberry blonde hair.

Moments after Colton was born. (Don't mind my super tired, puffy face!)

It was really quite the experience. For awhile, I had convinced myself that my body was messed up and didn't know how to go into labor. Colton was 3 days late and up until I actually went into labor, I didn't have any signs that it was even close! The last 2 weeks of pregnancy plus the extra 3 days were awful and the wait was so hard! For someone who likes to be prepared for everything, just waiting around for a huge, life-changing event and having no idea when it will happen was stressful.

Despite my worries, my body did know how to go into labor. On Thursday July 7th, it proved it in a big way! I woke up at about 6:00am with my first contraction. At first I wasn't sure what it was, I just knew that it hurt. All day Thursday I had contractions. They started about an hour apart and gradually got closer and closer together. The closer together they got, the more painful they were. By midnight, the contractions were 5-8 minutes apart and awful! I finally had to go sit in a hot bath for an hour or so because it made them about 2% better, but even that 2% was worth it! At two in the morning, July 8th, Jon finally convinced me we needed to go to the hospital. I didn't want to go because I was convinced that they would just send me home.

When we got to the hospital, they hooked me up to some monitors and watched my contractions and the baby for an hour. The contractions KILLED and I had to sit them out for a whole hour. It was misery. When the hour was up, they came and checked me and I hadn't progressed any further so they were going to send me home. I was so upset because the contractions were coming every four minutes about and lasting like 90 seconds each. I thought I was going to die! The nurse told me to go home and try to get some sleep. YEAH RIGHT! Then she left and came back a few minutes later and said the doctor on call said I should walk around the hospital for an hour and then they would check me again. The idea sounded awful but better than going home. The next hour was pretty bad, trying to walk it out through super painful contractions. When the hour was through, they checked me again and I still hadn't progressed much. So, once again, they almost sent me home. At that point, I pretty much broke down. I felt so hopeless.

Then came the beautiful news! The doctor decided that since I was past my due date, they could just take me in and admit me and give me some pitocen to move things along a little faster. YAY! They called the anesthesiologist and half an hour later I had an epidural and it was AMAZING! This was about at 4:30/5am. The epidural helped me to finally get some sleep. Since I hadn't slept in almost 24 hours, I was pretty exhausted. Jon and I both slept for about 3 hours. Jon curled up on the little pull out couch bed in the corner. He was a trooper through the long night! They hooked me up to pitocin before I fell asleep and it really helped me to progress a lot faster. At 10:00am, they came in and told me I was ready to push. Jon and I both had a minor little panic attack at this point realizing that we were about to become parents. At 10:40am I started pushing and at 11:24am, Colton was born. It was the weirdest and most crazy good moment of my life. I was in pain, but felt happy. It was miraculous, and unbelievable, and crazy, and wonderful. It was so hard to grasp the concept that I had just brought this baby into the world and that Jon and I were parents now! I was just totally dazed but it was really incredible. I remember an overwhelming feeling of gratitude that Heavenly Father had sent this precious baby to me.

We didn't have a name for him off the bat. We had narrowed it down to William (after Jon's middle name), Carter, or Zachary. We tried calling him those names but they just didn't fit. Then Colton came to my head. It was a name Jon had mentioned he liked earlier but we had never discussed it seriously. We tried it out and Colton fit, so Colton it was!

We really like the hospital and the doctors and nurses. They were all very nice and professional and very helpful. The rooms were nice and had pull out beds that Jon was able to sleep on at night. It was a crazy experience but the happiest day of our lives together. We love our little Colton so much!