She's Here! the delivery

This last month had it's challenges and so many times I was sure she was going to come, but she held out as long as she possibly could. I had the braxton hicks for months and finally they became regular at 36 weeks, I was sure I was in labor. After a trip to the hospital one day and the doctor the next, I learned I was not. The doctor scheduled me to be induced on March 19th, the day I turned 39 weeks. I was sure I wouldn't last that long and would be back in the hospital to have her by 37 weeks. Well, that came and went, and 38 weeks came and went. I was feeling pretty miserable and had talks with my sweet angel daily asking her to please be ready and come. She did not agree.

Then the day came, the 19th, and I knew it was all over, my baby girl would be in my arms by the end of the day. Jason took the day off of work, and we sat and waited. I was told the night before I was #3 on the 'on call' list and if I hadn't heard by noon. Noon came with no call, so I finally made myself call only to hear they were completely full and it could be a while. Maybe an hour later, I got a call from a number that looked similar to the one I had called. Full of hope that this would be the call to come, I answered the phone to another disappointment. I had been bumped and needed to be rescheduled. So, I picked the soonest day I could. Tuesday, March 23rd.

Monday came and I got the call saying that I was again #3 on the list. I was a little nervous about getting bumped again and prayed I'd hear from them early. It was a long sleepless night. I woke up at about 4 am and couldn't go back to sleep. About 10 to 6 (6am being the earliest they said they'd call) I finally put my phone down and made the decision to force myself to sleep. 5 minutes later, the phone rang. The hospital!! They wanted to know how soon I could be there. It was finally going to happen, I was going to get my sweet baby girl and be done with this miserable pregnancy!!

We got the the hospital about about 6:45am and by 730, I was checked in, hooked up to the monitors and the petocin began. As the contractions got stronger, I waited for the doctor to come in. Luckily it didn't take long. About 830 or maybe a bit sooner, he came in. Checked me and broke my water and the wonderful blessing of an epidural became possible. He told me the sooner the better because of the other inductions that had come in that morning could cause a 'line' for getting them. I waited a couple of hours and the contractions were so bad I couldn't take it anymore. I kept telling Jason I was done, and I didn't want to do it anymore. I finally got my epidural and it all got a lot easier. I watched some shows, took a couple naps and just waited around til the nurse came in to check my status.

Slow progress for first half of the day and pretty heavy contractions, luckily, i couldn't feel a lot of them all thanks to that wonderful little miracle of an epidural. At least til about 230 that afternoon. My legs were so numb it was hard to move one of them, and yet, I could still feel the contractions pretty dang strong. I kept praying that it meant i was near the end, but only being a couple hours after the last time I was checked(at that point I was dialated to about a 3) I had little hope that I had made much progress. Finally at about 3 the nurse came in to see how I was doing. When she saw I was hurting pretty dang bad again she told me to hit the little button to get more meds through the epidural or said they could have the anesthesiologist to come in and adjust the meds to a higher level. At that point, I was up to 8 cm's! I was so so pleased and so surprised to be that far already.

The nurse came back at about 345 and said I was about 9 1/2, just a tiny bit more to go, so she started prepping the room for my sweet girl to come. It was such a long 15-20 minutes waiting for her to come back and waiting to see if it was time for this girl to come! Just after 4 I was to a 10 and she called the doctor to get over to the hospital (luckily the doctors office is across the parking lot from the doctors office. It only took about 5 minutes for the doctor to run over then everything really started. 4:34pm my sweet beautiful baby girl was finally here and in my arms. She was perfect and just as people always seem to say, I fell head over heals in love with her the second I saw her sweet face.

They took her over and got her all weighed in and cleaned up and all that. She weighed in at 6 lbs 14 ozs and 20" long! Such a big difference from my little munchkin, Mia(5 lbs 15 oz). My sweet Lilly Elise, her adorable little round face and chubby cheeks! We held her and loved her all we could and enjoyed every second we had alone, just her, me and Jason, before we had to share her with our family and friends. She is an amazing little girl and although it ended up being a longer wait then I had hoped for to get here, it was all well more than worth it. She truly is amazing and has brought so much love and joy to our sweet family!