Birth Story - Part II

Around 2:30 am I woke up to go to the bathroom - which was a nightly occurrence by this late in the pregnancy! I shuffled to the bathroom without even fully waking up, which, on a normal night, made it easier for me to go back to sleep. However, tonight it caused me to almost miss the fact that it appeared my water had broken! Although my gut feeling told me that's what it was, I really wasn't sure (no, it wasn't the typical gush you hear about in the movies!) so I laid back down in bed, not really sure what to do. About 15 minutes later some relatively painful contractions started up. I decided after about 20 minutes that they were coming frequently enough that I should time them, especially if my water had broken. 45 minutes later, I was waking Chris up to let him know I needed to call the doctor - they were coming regularly and were getting more painful. Now it was around 4 am.

In a stroke of luck, the McKenney's were staying with us after coming down for Paige's party. (Mike also predicted me having the baby at 4 am that night - kind of freaky). I felt bad but I finally had to admit that we needed to go to the hospital and woke Lori up to tell her. She was super excited. :) So off to the hospital we go!

Painful contractions continue on the way to the hospital. We arrived there around 4:30. Got checked sometime within that first half hour and it was determined that my water HAD broken and I was 4 cm dilated - I was staying and we were going to have a baby. OMG!!

The next 2-3 hours are a blur and I can only approximate the timeline. By around 6 am I was 7 cm dilated. (still no epidural, OUCH!!) Sometime during the next hour I got my epidural, which only half worked (OUCH!!!!) Around 7 am I started pushing. She was posterior (face up) which slowed down the process a bit, but by 7:29 am our little Natalie was born!! She cried right away and it was amazing! No pictures from immediately after, but here are some of the early ones (we hadn't thought to bring our camera in all the confusion).