Happy Birthday!

2:00am, February 21, 2010
I woke up with some pretty steady contractions. Not too painful but enough to know we were talking business. I woke your dad up to tell him that it would probably be best to get over to the hospital since it was so far from home. I was counting my contractions to be 7 minutes apart. He is a bit of a stickler for using public bathrooms and knew we would be at the hospital for a while so decided to wait and see, if anything would happen. My contractions moved to 5 minutes apart and I requested we skip the bathroom wait and get going.

Five Centimeters
By the time we got to triage at Mary Birch I was already measuring 5 cm dilation although the contractions were 5 minutes apart they were not very strong but they admitted me into labor and delivery room. By this time gigi and papa, aunty Danielle and aunty Andrea had arrived and we didn't know how long the wait would be. I was excited, not at all nervous and hoping for the best. I was still coughing hard all the time with my bronchitis and could barely breathe and the conjunctivitis was so bad at this point that I had green ooze coming out of my eyes. I was hungry from only eatings soup having been sick and tired having not been able to sleep due to the big belly so I was weak, but knew that this was one of the most important days of my life so was going to give it my all.

Nine Centimeters
Between 6am-11am I had dilated to 9 cm, but my water had not broken so Dr. Chortkoff broke it for me. I was certain I would deliver you by noon and was excited at the prospect of eating as all I had been sipping on was vitamin water and jello. Other than the hunger things were going just as I had hoped they would, I had the epidural at 5cm and had only pressed the release button a few times as I wanted to feel what was going on. I was feeling courageous and ready to go but alas I wouldn't dilate further even though the contractions were closer together and allot more painful.

By 3pm they gave me some Pitocin to help the dilation. At this point I was starting to swell closed and they wanted to avoid a c-section, our nurse Virgina was certain I'd have the baby by 5pm. We hoped so because she had to knock off work soon and we didn't want a different nurse. She had been with us all day and was the most amazing nurse and caretaker anyone could have dreamed for. She kept checking me, asking if I felt the need to push and I didn't. We waited.

From 3am papa had sat in the waiting room, gigi had been running around getting your dad food and me juice and ice. Aunty Andrea and aunty "D" were with us the entire day. I could not have done it without all the love and support. Your daddy was constantly on the phone uploading updates to Facebook and emailing friends and family.

It was about 5pm and suddenly I felt the need to push sort of like a bowel movement. I let everyone know and there was allot of rushing about. I was so relieved to have my actual doctor on call to deliver our baby, most people never get to have the doctor they have been visiting with for 10 months, I knew without a doubt I was in great hands.

Puuuush
I thought due to my core strength I would birth you in a few pushes, but I was wrong. I think had I not had such chronic bronchitis I would have had a much easier time. I pushed for about an hour and a half and the entire time I had a wet clothe over my eyes because they were so painful and the two spotlights above me didn't help. I wish I had seen more of what was going on around me. Dad held a leg and whispered words of encouragement and at 6:28pm February 21, 2010 you, our beautiful, perfect baby girl was born. 7lb 11 ounce and 19 inches long :-)