Finally!

Well, as you can probably tell from my lack of posting, MA is finally here! My water broke at 4:00am on 9/12/2011. The look on MJ's face was priceless when I woke him up. He actually had to stand in the hallway for a second and ask me if it was real or if he was dreaming. What no one tells you is that when your water breaks, it never stops coming out! For that, I am grateful that I was walking into the hospital at 4:30am and not in the middle of the day!

When we got to the hospital, I did not have regular contractions. They admitted us and put us in the room to get the contractions going. They had me walking around the hallway to help. Around 10am, they became more prominent and by noon they were painful. The doctors said that my body was doing the labor on its own and they did not think I needed any medication to help, at this point. Around 2:30pm or so, I was finally at 4 cm. dialated. I gave in and got the epidural around 3pm or so. From then on, the contractions just got stronger, but with the medication, I was able to get some rest.

Finally, around 9:00pm, they checked me again and I was 9 cm. They wanted to give some medication to help the contractions along, by MA had other plans. They gave me Pictocin and then decided that they were going to have me do some "practice pushes." Well, halfway through the first push, MA's head started to appear. It only took a few more pushes and at 10:00pm, MA was born.

It was beautiful, shocking, exhausting, energizing and confusing, all at once, but I would not change it for the world. MA is the best baby. She has a great personality already and it is only getting more prominent every single day. She is pretty content, as long as she is fed and changed. She has beautiful black hair and loves to cuddle. We love her more than life itself.

 MA, four days old.

MA, 1 day old, at the hospital.