She's here!

Well, a lot has happened since I last posted! I had my 34 week appointment and everything looked great. My OB was really excited that we got to 34 weeks and baby was measuring 4lb 11oz, right on track. A week later on Saturday, I was exactly 35 weeks and my sweet friend threw me a prayer brunch and a bunch of my friends came from church and prayed over me and the baby and it was a really great day. Someone made a joke about it being labor day weekend and to not go into labor. :) So that night we got ready for bed and I laid down in bed for the night and felt a gush, and then another...and then another. My water broke and I'm blaming it on the full moon we had the night before! ;)

So we threw a bunch more clothes into my hospital bag and we headed out to the hospital. I wasn't having contractions but Benjamin was born 4 hours after my water broke so I wanted to get moving as soon as possible. They confirmed that my water broke and said visually my cervix looked closed and they admitted me. The OB on call wanted to induce me right away but I put them off for over 24 hours. During that time, not much was happening at all. I would have random contractions every 10-15 minutes but they weren't strong. We agreed that they would induce me after 24 hours because it was safer to get the baby out than wait it out since I didn't appear to be in labor. I decided to try the breast pump as a last bit effort because all of the power walking and squats did nothing. The pump put things into high gear and I immediately starting getting contractions that were painful every 3 minutes. My nurse then freaked out (but was still calm) and explained to me that I did way too much and now I was in overdrive and the babies heart rate was deceling because it was too much too soon and if that continued to happen they would do a C-section. So now they agreed not to induce me because we would see what my body was going to do. Over the next 9 hours, my contractions were totally sporadic but painful and the decels mostly went away. After 9 hours they decided to check me finally and to everyone's surprise, I was 7cm! I hadn't slept since Friday night at this point so I was completely exhausted and so ready to be done. The OB really wanted to start me on pitocin since it was now 33 hours since my water broke and things were pretty slow going. I finally agreed because I was just tired! They started me on a very low dose and things definitely picked up and because a little more painful and way more consistent. Now I decided to get the epidural. I'm not sure happy about this decision but I was just too exhausted to keep going. The crazy thing is, pain wise, if Benjamin's labor pains were a 10 (and they were!), this was probably more of a 7. It was all mental, I just couldn't do it anymore with no sleep. So I got the epi and was able to rest for just a bit. Two hours later it was time to push and they turned it off (but it was still totally in my system). I pushed twice during a contraction and her head was right there. We waited for the next contraction...and waited and it seriously wouldn't come. Talk about a strange labor. So they just had me push without one. Another two pushes and her head was right there so my OB had me stop to stretch everything and a few tiny pushes later and baby slid right now. I still tore just a tiny bit in the same spot as last time. She did have her cord around her neck, which is why they said her heart kept deceling. They held the baby out to Rob and he said "It's a girl!" She came out screaming at the top of her lungs, which was so great because at 35 weeks you just never know how the lungs will be. They told me there was a 50/50 chance of her going to the NICU but her lungs were great and she got a 9 APGAR score so they let her stay on my chest for an hour! :) I was so happy about this and she also started rooting and latched on within minutes of birth. The doctors were amazed and said she was doing fantastic for being so early. She weighed 5lb 6oz and was 19 3/4". So she is tiny and super long! We are in the hospital for 48 hours for observation and she is passing all of the tests (no jaundice, no infection, & normal blood sugar) so it looks like we are headed home tomorrow. We are so so excited that she is so healthy for being early and are so blessed to have a little girl. Her name is Eden Grace. :)

God has blessed us with this little miracle from the very beginning and we can't wait to see what is in store for our little girl. She must be one special little lady.

My last belly pic-35 weeks

Ben holding his "baby seester" Eden