Looking back

Tomorrow is my sweet "little" baby's first birthday. In honor of this I thought I would post my birth story and some pictures. :)

Raedyn Hope was born on Wednesday Sept. 1, 2010 at 12:53pm. She was 8lbs and 20in long.

I started having contractions at about 2:30am on Wednesday morning but they were so mild I assumed they were just the same braxton hicks I had been having. When they wouldn't go away I started timing them and they were 5-10 min apart. I still didn't believe it was the real thing but I kept timing them and when they started gettting closer together I woke my husband up. He wanted to get to the hospital right then but I was worried they would send me home so I started walking around the house to see if it they would let up. Of course they didn't and they got to about 3 min apart when we decided it was time to go in.

We got to the hospital at about 5am and they checked me and I was 5cm! I was so relieved that we didn't have to be sent home! L&D was packed that day so I was actually in triage for quite a while. We ended up getting put in the only room they had available which was the "isolation room." It was not nearly as welcoming as the room we saw on our tour.

Over the next 3 hours the contractions got really intense and were less than a minute apart. I felt like I barely had time to catch my breath. I was sure they must be doing something. The nurse checked me again and I was still only 5cm! At that point I decided to go ahead and get the epidural so I would have the strength to push when the time came. I was glad that I was still able to feel the contractions but they weren't painful. The doctor came in and broke my water and started me on pitocin.

Within an hour I was at 8cm and about 2 hours after that I was ready to push! I was totally watching Full House in between contractions! I pushed for about 45 min and then she was out! When they put her on my chest it was seriously the best moment of my life so far. She was so beautiful! She stopped crying as soon as I started talking to her and she opened her big eyes and stared at me.