Reed Colemon has arrived!

A little run down of how this all played out.
Written by Brandon:

So Thursday night Suzie had a girl's night and the boys and I had our standard daddy party.  When I put the boys to bed I reminded them how we were going to pick them up early from school then next day and go stay at the hotel.  This was supposed to our last family of four little vacation getaway.  I then went downstairs and decided to fold the 100 items of baby clothing that were just washed in preparation for the arrival of the baby the following week.

Suzie got home around 10 pm and we went to bed after some last minute prep for our stay at the Gaylord.  Well at 11 pm, Suzie wakes me up by saying something was wrong and she thought she needed to go to the hospital.  I'm pretty I had just gotten into that deep sleep (you know the sleep where you feel like you've been asleep all night and it's only been 30 minutes).  So I leaped out of bed not really knowing what was going on.  Suzie didn't really have a good answer either and she just kept saying she was leaking everywhere.  Well that didn't do much for me, so I told her to text her OB to get her opinion aka hopefully tell her it's fine and to go back to bed.  My dream came true and Suzie was told to go back to bed and drink lots of water.  So we laid there and Suzie proceeded to leak through 3 more pairs of pants and then was promptly texted by her OB it was time to go to the hospital.  Suzie texted our awesome neighbors to see if one of them could come over and sleep on our couch while we were at the hospital and luckily they quickly texted back they were on their way over.  So in the Van Sickle way, we were not prepared for this because the baby was not supposed to arrive until next week.  No bags packed, no clue where to go in the hospital, camera was dead, memory card full, you know all the important stuff.  So I get in the car and wait for Suzie only to go back inside to find out she can't find her shoes.  Only Suzie!  So she found some shoes but brought no socks, I'll take it.  Off we go.

So we get to the hospital and get situated in the room and I get the classic "husband bed".  You know the 1 inch thick, hard as a rock, couch bed.  Needless to say my back is still broken.  By 4:30 am Suzie was ready for the epidural at which time I requested one myself from laying on that bed.  Suzie received hers and well I'm still waiting on mine.  At 5:30 I had to go home to relieve our neighbor so she could go back and watch her own kids while her husband went to work.  We knew that it could be all day until the baby arrived since Suzie was still only at a 1, so I planned on taking the boys to school before heading back to the hospital.

Well remember how I mentioned my pumping boys up the night before for the Gaylord hotel stay, well so did the boys.  I decided I was going to video the announcement that mommy was at the hospital and they were going to become big brothers today.  Hudson being the smart boy he is thought that was just great, but then said then can we go to the hotel.  Sadly I had to inform him that we would not be going. Luke took it well and even said "we can just go back when our baby brother gets bigger".  Yes Luke very good I said.  Hudson on the other hand was about to crumble.  He was like a volcano about to erupt and when he did the tears were flowing.  Poor buddy!  By the time we got to school though, Hudson was 100% on board about becoming a big brother.  He was showing everyone his new "big brother" shirt.

So I head back to the hospital and was started to turn into the Starbucks parking lot to get some energy from no sleep (thanks husband bed) but the line was real long.  I thought for a second, man I don't want to get stuck in this line and miss something so I jumped back on the road and settled for a cup of joe from 7-11 instead.  I arrived back at the hospital around 9 am and planned on watching some Today Show and drinking my coffee but it was not meant to be.  I get in the room and the Dr. informed me it was go time.  Just to be clear I asked if that meant right now and it sure did.  So I assumed my position, as high on the bed as humanly possible while staring straight ahead at the wall.  The Dr. and nurse were laughing at me and asked if I was going to pass out.  I made it clear it had nothing to do with blood or anything but some mental pictures were not meant to be altered.  About 25 minutes of pushing and awkward petting of the head/shoulder grabbing/husband motivation, out came Reed Colemon (name decided upon arrival since we technically still had a week left to decide) at 9:40 am.  He was 7 lb 3.5 oz and 19 inches long.  Suzie was incredible, so proud!  She conquered the VBAC like a champ!  I turned around long enough to cut the cord, which I highly recommend.  Definitely one of the coolest things I've ever done.

Man that was fun to type.  A long but awesome story through the eyes of a proud dad and husband.

He failed to blog about the fact that while I was pushing, my OBGYN and the nurse start laughing. I stop pushing long enough to ask if they are laughing at me!? (I mean, all sorts of stuff could have been going on that I didn't know about.) And they said they were laughing at Brandon. He was in the corner, facing the wall, taking selfies. He said he wanted to remember this moment. Boy, I think everyone in the room will remember that moment!

Happy Birthday sweet boy!

Welcome to our crazy family!

 And 24 hours later... we were headed home!