The birth story

So I went in to labor on Thursday night (Sept 9th). It was about 10pm and I noticed some occasional cramping. I didn't sleep well at all that night as the cramping kept waking me up. I waited until 6am to wake Christopher up...I think that was pretty generous of me ;) Christopher stayed home with me on Friday and I had contractions at fairly regular intervals for most of the day. We kept calling our Bradley instructor and telling her the timing and asking when we needed to go to the hospital. We wanted to spend as much time in the comfort of home as we could, however, I also didn't want there to be any chance I'd have to deliver the baby in the car on the way to hospital either.

At 6pm Friday we decided it was time to go to the hospital. My contractions had gotten stronger by then so we figured we should go ahead and head over to the hospital and get settled. We were admitted pretty quickly and the first nurse that checked me said I was 7cm but that she wanted a second opinion so another nurse checked and said I was 9cm. I stayed that way for the next few hours as the contractions got worse. Finally around maybe 11pm my water broke and I was up to 10cm. At midnight the nurse told me that they were concerned about the baby's heart rate as it was apparently dropping during my contractions. Although I wasn't yet feeling the need to push (despite being 10cm, her head still hadn't descended enough yet) I was instructed that I HAD to start pushing. So for the next two hours I pushed with everything I had until she was born at 2:06am on Sept 11th. The nurse who was with me for the labor and delivery said it was the best delivery she had seen in years. A few other nurses also commented on how amazing it was that I didn't have any drugs...apparently very few people go med free at this hospital. I was just relieved to have it all over with and to be holding my sweet little girl :)