As three become four : She's here!!

That's right folks, no more weekly updates, or belly pictures. I'm going to attempt to give you the best birth story I can, but keep in mind that I was drugged, tired, and in pain all at different times during my labor and delivery, so if not all of the facts are correct, I'm sorry, I'll try to come back and edit.

Friday (10/29)

I spent all day with Lindsey. We went to lunch with her mom, and then off to Mall at Millenia to walk around to get some contractions flowing. I had a few but nothing compared to the night before. Thursday I had them every 10 minutes, and GOD did they hurt. I knew labor was on it's way. So we went back to her house after the mall failed us, and we did some acupressure, and she had some black cohosh pills, so I took one. Well, that kind of got things started. I was having them about every 20, or 30 minutes. We all went to dinner at Alf's, and I ordered some hot wings (just in case) and some DELICIOUS sweet potato fries. By the time we got our food, I was having SERIOUSLY painful contractions very regularly. By the time we were done with dinner I was ready to go to the hospital (about 8pm), this was it! Lindsey and Wes dropped us off and we went in, got hooked up, checked, and sadly I was only about 2 to 3 centimeters. They said I could either walk around for 2 hours to see if that would dilate me more, or I could go home. There was no way in hell I was leaving, when people tell you contractions hurt, they are NOT lying. I had to breathe through them, and concentrate on something to keep me from crying. So, Hubs and I walked around the hospital, and Linds came back to keep up company and to stay updated. After about 2 hours we went back to get checked. I hadn't changed; BUT my blood pressure was through the roof, which was unusual since my BP was always good, and under control. They took some blood and sent it off to the lab to check for pre-eclampsia and to see if I would be able to get an epidural if I was admitted. HOURS later, they came back and at 4am they moved me to LABOR & DELIVERY!!! This was seriously it, it was time, oh.my.god. I was going to have a baby soon!

Saturday(10/30)

So like I said, around 4am we got a room in L&D and I was introduced to one of my many nurses. She was super nice, Christina I think. I told her I needed meds, I was in pain and it was bad. She checked me and again, oh.my.god. I was dilated to 5! No shit I was in so much pain, I was in active labor! So she told me I could either have the epidural now, or I could have a shot of Stadol in my IV to take the edge off. I chose the Stadol because I've heard horror stories of epidurals wearing off right when labor starts; I was not down with that. So about 10 seconds after she added that to my IV I felt drunk! And the pain was almost gone. It was awesome. So we hung out, updated FB, watched some TV, and tried to sleep. I should mention my poor, poor husband had been up since 5am Friday morning, so here we were, all of us had been up for 24+ hours. I couldn't sleep. I tried, but my mind kept wondering. So after a few hours, the Stadol wore off, and I was ready for the epidural. The anesthesiologist came in, and asked if I knew the complications that could arise from getting an epidural, I said yep, and he said ok, here we go. I was not scared of getting it. I hear some many people say they are terrified of getting one, and I just don't get it. He stuck me with the numbing meds, that kind of burned, but that was the worst part of it. He inserted it into my back and it was in a blood vessel so he said, so he had to re-do it. The second time he got it right. Within minutes, I felt amazing. It was kind of odd, not being able to move my legs, they were like, dead, but whatever, I was no longer in pain! Hubs called the fam and let everyone know what was going on, and some of them decided to come on up. Way too early, if you ask me, but whatever. They decided to give me Pitocin to speed things up, and came in a while later to break my water. Here's where things get fuzzy. I don't remember times for anything after that. I got checked again and was 9 & 1/2! Hold Crap! This was happening really fast. They said I would probably deliver by noon! NOON! Well, I had progressed pretty well, but the baby was not moving down into the birth canal. She was still really high up, so I sat up to try and let gravity do it's job. Next time they checked me I was fully dilated, don't get too excited, I couldn't start pushing because she was stillllll too high. So I had to lie on my right side for 30 minutes, then on my left side for another 30 minutes. Everyone had arrived except my dad's side, and some of them even had to leave around this time (that's what they get for coming so early). After the hour of flip flopping they checked and it was time to push. I did a couple practice pushes to make sure I knew what I was doing, apparently I did. So with each contraction (which I couldn't feel, even though the nurses kept asking... the nurse was also Sarah by this time) I pushed 3 times. I pushed for about 20 minutes (thanks to Lindsey for keeping track of this) and then they told me to stop! They had to get the doctor because she was coming! The doctor came in, and I pushed one, maybe two more times and out she was at 3:02pm on October 30th 2010! They put her up on my belly and we had some skin to skin time for a minute. She was here. I was a mom. I was crying, Hubs was crying, Linds was crying....it was amazing. She was so alert, looking around with her big grey eyes, then they took her to clean her up and get her weight and length. She was 7lbs 7oz, 19 & 3/4in long. She got 9's on both of her Apgars. Healthy, tiny, and beautiful.