December 8th

On Monday, December 8th I awoke about 5 am with an upset stomach. I attributed this to the labor chili I ate the night before. I got up to use the restroom and when I stood up I felt a gush of fluid...

Now, a week before I went to labor and delivery thinking my water had broken and it hadn't...so I didn't freak out, because I wanted to make sure this was the real deal. I took a shower and laid back in bed and noticed I was having pretty intense contractions not regularly spaced, but close together nonetheless. Ben woke up for work at 7 and I told him I thought my water had broken and I was having contractions but to go ahead and go to work to get his lesson plans together for his substitute teacher. I didn't want my contractions to stop and him to waste a day of personal time. He left at 7:00 and by 7:30 I called him and said, THIS IS IT! Come home so we can go to the hospital! We still had the hospital bag in the trunk from a week before but I didn't *really* think we were going to be admitted that day.

We get to labor and delivery and I'm having strong contractions about 5 minutes apart. Ben was great "breathing through it" with me. He was SO excited bouncing around saying... "Are we having a baby today?!". I didn't call anybody and asked him not to as well because if it was another false alarm I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up.

*side thought-Ben asked if we could drive through Chickfila on the way to the hospital and I said no because I was in too much pain. I later came to regret this having gone through 17.5 hours of labor on a small muffin alone. NOT FUN.*

The same doctor was on call as a week before and I thought "Oh great, he's going to think I'm some crazy chick trying to wish myself into labor". He checked my cervix and swabbed for fluid and went to look under a microscope and came back VERY quickly to say, this is it! You're having a baby today! They will only let you go 18 hours after your water breaks to delivery the baby so we were on a time clock.

We moved to a labor and delivery room (very nice, I love the hospital where we had the baby). At this point it's 9:30 in the morning. They told me to relax, breathe through the contractions, I was only 2.5 cm dilated and had a while to go before I could have an epidural. So I labored naturally until 3:00 in the afternoon then they came in and asked if I wanted to go ahead and have it done (YES! I do!).

*Sigh* about the epidural...to make a long story short I had three epidurals, the first going to a wrong cavity and the second was a 1 in 1000 chance there was a kink in the epidural line. The third epidural worked fine thought and the pain wasn't bad. I just didn't look at what they were doing.

*side note~ Ben later told me he wanted to punch just about every doctor or nurse while they were doing all the procedures invovled in this process. I think him seeing me in pain was worse for him than me being in pain...except that last hour. I'd say it was worse for me than for him.*

After the epidural kicked in they gave me pitocin to speed my contractions. I dilated pretty quickly at this point from 4 centimeters to 7 centimeters. THEN the "reaction" to the epidural hit, and I think I threw up about 30 times between all the medications they gave me in the process. It helped speed things along though. Can you believe the throwing up action pushed the baby down?!

*side note, Ben was a champ, taking care of me during all this. It takes a strong man to see what he saw and stay positive and in good spirits. He helped me stay cleaned up and feeling as good as possible throughout this long day*

My doctor was on vacation but made it to the hospital to deliver the baby! I pushed about 20 minutes and then I looked up and she was there! Ben said it was hilarious that I was a little loopy with fatigue at this point and I said "Dr. Green! I am so glad you could make it!" another cool thing, one of Ben's students' Dad's is the head of the OB.GYN department in the hospital and came in to watch the delivery and encourage me. I was SO exhausted at this point when they told me "it's getting close!" I quite frankly didn't believe them. Finally after an hour of pushing she arrived!

Elizabeth Jane was born at 10:07 pm on Monday, December 8th. She weighted 7 lb 1 oz.