More on birthin' babies

Okay, here's the story of how Audrey came into the world... We had decided if she didn't want to come out on her own, we'd force her out by inducing labor on May 24. Not all that romantic, and I tried like hell to get her out over the weekend. She kept teasing us, however; I had false labor all weekend and had convinced myself on several occasions we'd be going into labor that evening, but it never happened. Our doctor suggested we induce, so we went for it! We were supposed to check into the hospital on Tuesday night at 8pm, but there was a snag - apparrently too many Fremont babies decided to go that night, so the hospital was too busy to take a non-emergency induction! We were discouraged on Tuesday night, because we were all ready to go and get this party started, but we took it in stride. Luckily, the hospital called at 7:30 am on Wednesday and said they could take us then. We got to the hospital and got checked in around 9am. My doctor said things would go relatively the same, I just wouldn't have the benefit of an overnight dosage of a primer drug, and I'd probably have the baby in the middle of the night, but that was okay. We were just happy we were there and things were getting done! Here I am, happy to be at the hospital:

And my trusty coach, rubbing my feet! (Cory was the best coach ever, by the way. I told him he should be a doula! I don't think he'll change professions, though.)

We gave the primer drug till around noon to kick in, then we started the pitocin, or "The Pit" as it's affectionately called. For those familliar with birthin babies, this is a well known drug to get contractions started. Many women (including me!) feared it, as it's supposed to make contractions stronger and more painful than the normal natural route. I didn't find it to be that bad though, They kept upping the dosage until about 6, and that's when it got too bad to take anymore and I ordered the epidural. At that point I was 5cm dialated, about halfway, so I was happy I made it that far. There was no downside to having the epidural, so I went for it. Here's a pic of a not so fun contraction:

After the epidural things felt better, but only for a little bit. At around 8pm the contractions seemed stronger and about as painful as before I had the epidural, so I asked the nurse to turn up the pain meds. She checked me beforehand, and said I was already at 10cm! I was so surprised, I thought it would be at least midnight before I was fully dialated. So I was ready to push. Of course, it had to be then that Cory decided to go out to grab dinner! My mom and sister were there, and they had just returned from our fav Mexican place La Pinata and had brought Cory dinner. He was going to go down to a waiting room to eat, but we only found out later that room was full, so he went downstairs to the cafeteria to eat. While he was out, we found out I was ready to push, so my mom and Allison were searching for Cory everywhere and we couldn't find him! I was mildly freaking out; I knew it would still be a while before baby came and he'd be back, but I still needed him there! He finally turned up and was just as surprised as I was.

So pushing...yeah, did it for 2 hours. Don't want to go into any gory details, I'll just say it wasn't fun. They didn't turn up my epidural pain meds, becuase i needed to feel things to push baby out, but oh how I didn't really want to feel those things! Once she was out, though, it's funny how in a split second all that pain doesn't matter. It's kind of a blur - they put Audrey on me and I got a first glance, but then they whisk her away to do all the testing, clean her up, etc. Meanwhile the doc is still working on me, getting everything "down there" fixed up. I'm sparing my blog the goopy baby shots, as I'm not a big fan. She's much cuter cleaned up!

Here's a few of my other coaches, my mom and sister...

And a few more pics...check out my birthin' baby gift from Daddy...a beautiful emerald ring to celebrate our May baby!

And a happy mommy picture, as I certainly am extremely happy!

That's it for now...I'll write a bit later about the following days at the hospital and post partum since we got home. A few of you that are expecting may gain from my experiences! I found the most helpful thing was to listen to everybody's stories and try to prepare for your own, because everybody finds different things difficult or easy.

Tonight I'm having my first beer in 9 months! I'm so excited! It's tricky with breastfeeding, you need to drink it early enough before your next feeding so that it's not in the milk, and since I'm feeding every 2 hours, that means I essentially have to drink it when the little monkey is suckling at my boob, which just makes me feel like a trashy mom! But I don't care, it's a beer! Yay!! :)