Week 38 - She's here!!!

Well everyone, I didn't have a chance to take my 38 week picture because baby Ana made her grand appearance on Wednesday, January 7th! I woke up with what I thought was amniotic fluid leaking but wasn't sure because it was small amounts. Just after 9am there was a significant gush! Yep, my water definitely broke. This experience was crazy because I have never had my water break outside of the hospital! We immediately went to the hospital to check in and make sure everything was looking good. We arrived and got settled in at about 10am - I was at 3cm at this point. Of course after 3 weeks of prodromal labor, my contractions completely stopped. My doctor gave me until noon to go into labor otherwise they would have to start pitocin. Pitocin is a synthetic version of Oxytocin which is the hormone that is released in your body to get contractions started. I walked the hospital and bounced on my birthing ball for 2 hours without any luck. I have had a pitocin induced labor before with my daughter and it is not fun! Finally at noon the pitocin was administered and things began to progress. Every 20 minutes they would increase the amount of pitocin which would increase the intensity of the contractions and put them closer together. At

4:15pm I asked for the epidural. They checked my cervix again and I was only at 4cm. I was discouraged but I knew that my body goes from 6cm to 10cm within minutes, no joke. At 4:45pm My epidural was in and they had to check my again, I was now at 6cm. Everyone around me was saying it would be just a few hours now. Not me, I knew it was coming, but was not aware of how fast! Just as soon as my legs were getting numb, I began to feel as if she was trying to break the right side of my pelvic bone. I could not catch my breath or even speak. The nurse came to check me at 5:05pm and the baby's head was right there! She was coming. My doctor was called and sped to the hospital, just in time to catch her after two pushes at 5:16pm! It was fast, intense, but the most amazing rush ever! The look on Sam's face was beyond words. This little 6lbs bundle looked nothing like my children. She looked just like her daddy. No feeling of baby fever or sadness even came across my mind. Sam finally had the moment that I had been waiting for for this past year. My amazing husband captured everything with my camera and took some unbelievable pictures for them to keep since Ben unfortunately missed her birth.

Once I have time to sit and decompress I will fill you in on what happened the nights that followed her birth!