The Story of Laurel's Birth

Now that we are sitting here at the hospital, enjoying our little girl, I have some time to reflect on the fast chain of events that led us to this point.

As I said in my post yesterday, my water broke early yesterday morning at 2:30. I had gotten up to go to the bathroom and Tim asked me if I wanted to turn up the speed on the ceiling fan. I did and as I was getting back into bed, he was complaining that the pizza we had for dinner was killing him. I laid down and said, "Well, this baby is killing me!" I had barely got that sentence out of my mouth when I felt this strange little popping feeling and a gush of water. I ran to the bathroom, telling Tim that I thought my water had just broken. I was so shocked, Tim and I just sat around for about an hour trying to figure out if that really was my water that broke. I laid down again and had another gush of water. Then I started having contractions at about 3:30 a.m., so I figured we better go on to the hospital.

When we got to the hospital I was 3 centimeters dilated at 4:30 a.m. I progressed to 4 centimeters at 5:30 a.m. and then stayed there until about 11:00 a.m., and at that point I was 5-6 centimeters. They supplemented my labor with pitocin and at that point the contractions started coming every 1.5 to 2 minutes and then I needed the epidural!! It wasn't bad at all (plus I was having a really hard contraction while the doctor was inserting the needle, so I wasn't really even thinking about my back.)

At 11:45 a.m. I started feeling like I needed to have a bowel movement. One of my best friends, Rachel, (who has 2 kids) said that probably meant I was ready to push. I didn't believe her because I was just checked 45 minutes earlier and was only 5-6 centimeters and the nurse said it would probably be another four to six hours. Rachel went to get a nurse just in case, and the nurse checked me and said, "I think I know why you are feeling a lot of pressure, you are ready to push!" It was so fast!

I pushed for about 1 and 1/2 hours (definitely the longest/shortest hour and a half of my life.) I was so completely exhausted by the end, but Tim was so wonderful. There was no way I could have made it through without his great coaching and a wonderful nurse who gave excellent directions on how to push effectively. Dr. May (who was also fantastic) wound up having to help me a little with an episiotomy (which was pretty rough because my epidural had worn off a little, but they did give me some local anesthesia.) He let me hold her skin-to-skin immediately after her birth, which was so awesome.

She is so beautiful that I can just stare at her forever. It is so strange to see her outside of my body. I never knew I could love her more than I already did, but I think I love her more and more every single time I see her again. I feel so incredibly fortunate that things went well and that she is healthy and I'm feeling good. Sore, but good.