I'm sure you all want to see pictures, but first you have to hear the story. :-)
Sunday morning, August 17th, I woke up around 1:00 AM with a contraction. Ten minutes later I had another one so I decided to wake Ray. He really didn't believe it was time since we had 4 false labors before, but I told him this time was different. After the next contraction which had me on the floor he believed me and we started getting ready to go. They say you are supposed to wait until your contractions are 5 minutes apart for at least an hour. Well, I wasn't so sure about that rule and I told Ray that we needed to leave soon. We made it to Labor and Delivery around 2:50AM where they had me do a urine sample. While trying to manage that I had another contraction and my water broke. I survived that and finally got to lie down in the observation room.
In the observation room we had a wonderful nurse, Janelle. I tried to calmly explain to her that I was having a baby and that as of LAST Tuesday I was 4 CMs. She causally nodded her head and strapped on a fetal monitor which I thought was a bit too tight, but was informed otherwise. After 20 minutes of "observation" she "checked" me and informed us that I was at 9 CMs. There went the epidural. In fact, there went any idea of having pain meds. I know I wanted to do this all natural, but I think I was just psyching myself out. At this point I really wanted something for the pain. Ray was awesome, he was a champion for me, I couldn't have asked for a better person to be there with me. He kept telling me that I could do this and to keep breathing. (Something you really forget to do during a contraction). I felt bad for him because I kept asking him to "do something" and there wasn't a thing he could do for the pain.
So, Janelle, after finding out I was 9CMs, wasted no time in getting me into the delivery room. Guess they didn't want me having the baby in Observation.
I walked ALL 20 feet to the delivery room where I had a few more killer contractions. Janelle wanted to check me again because I told her all I wanted to do was push. After I fought with her (because I really didn't want to open my legs) she checked me and said I was 10 CMs and I could push.
Allow me to add an interjection here...has anyone heard me mention the DOCTOR? Yeah, they called mine and she said she would be here in half an hour...I told them that I would have this baby before then! Fortunately, there was a doctor who had just delivered a baby a few hours ago who was napping down the hall. She barely had time to wipe the sand from her eyes, throw on some scrubs and catch the baby!
Okay, enough with the interjection, when they told me I could push, I decided that I didn't want to play anymore and told them so. I was done and I wasn't going to push. It took both Ray and the nurse to convince me that if I pushed I would feel so much better. Okay. So I pushed even when I wasn't having a contraction and Lily arrived 4 minutes after I started pushing, at 3:54 AM.
All in all, I was in labor 2 hours and 54 minutes. No drugs, not even an IV! It was sort of humerous; after giving birth, they gave me a shot "down there" to numb the pain of the stitches (which I was very thankful for) and then they gave me a pink pill..."for the pain". Now they give me something!
Mama was doing okay as they were sewing her up, but baby was having difficulties transitioning to the breathing world. It seems that I didn't give her enough time to travel down the birth canal and squeeze the fluid out of her lungs. (Sorry, Lily). They took her down to NICU and to make a long story short, determined that she would be fine (which she is!).
Now, time for the pictures!