Not that bad! (the labor story)

Here's the birth story. When people ask me how it was, my answer is "not that bad!" I mean, don't get me wrong, it super sucked. (I was mad at Eve the entire time.) It just wasn't as bad as I had expected!

On Friday, Oct 1, I went into L&D because my blood pressure was pretty high. They ran some tests, checked me out and I was still only 2 cm, so we went home. I was put on bed rest for the weekend...not like serious bed rest...just like, stay on the couch and be lazy bed rest.

Fast forward to last Sunday night. Ross and I both took Benadryl to ensure a good night's rest...haha. Nice timing. Ross and I got in bed and I, of course, couldn't sleep so I read. At 11:10 I needed to go to the bathroom. When I got up, I was all sorts of wet. I thought I had wet my pants super bad. (like worse than a kindergartner) I went into the bathroom and had another huge gush. Hmm... I came out and whispered to Ross, "Hey babe, I think my water just broke." He shot up out of the bed and was dressed in under .5 seconds. He said that we needed to go to the hospital but I wasn't convinced. I didn't want to be the person who goes to Labor and Delivery only to be told that they peed themselves. We called the on-call doctor because, of course, mine was out that weekend. I told her that I thought my water had just broken and in a super condescending way she asked me, "Is this your first baby?" Hmm... Not nice. Anywhoo...she said to go up to L&D to get checked out. It was around this time that I started having severe contractions.

When we left the house the contractions were 17 minutes apart. When we got to the hospital (25 minutes away), they were 2 minutes apart...Can we say moving fast??? I was 3 cm when we got there and the nurse confirmed that no, I had not wet my pants. My water had broken and we would be having a baby that night!!! (brief moments of freaking out)

The contractions were super intense and after about 30 minutes I was begging for a c-section. The nurse told me no. I was so mad I wanted to punch her in the face, seriously. She also wouldn't let me have an epidural until I had taken in 2 bags of I.V. fluid. Again...wanted to punch her. Finally, the fluid was done so I got my glorious epidural!!! (I <3 anesthesiologists) It was WAY better after that but was still waaaay painful. Somewhere during all of that I progressed from 3 to 9 cm in about 2 hours. Again...Can we say moving fast??? Once he was in the right spot, I pushed 6 times and he was out! No episiotomy. One internal stitch. 6 1/2 hours from water breaking to baby arrival. No bad words! (Ok, I did say that it "hurt like hell" but I think I'm entitled to that one.) I'm one lucky lady!

The first part of him I saw was his sweet little hand. It rose above the blue sheet that was covering me and I just lost it. A few seconds later they lifted him up and placed him on my chest. Ross cut the cord and we both cried and cried. It was amazing. So sweet. So real. For the next few days the only prayer that I could muster up was "Thank you, God." I would look at Carson and Ross and just be overwhelmed with thanks. The experience was beyond words. We are blessed.