Elizabeth's Birth Day Story and pics

   * very long post, feel free to skip to the pictures at the bottom if you don't want to read the story.

     Due to my insurance changing March 1st and needing to have Elizabeth by then, I was scheduled to be induced Thursday February 23rd at 5am. The day before, i finished cleaning and picking up the house, got my bag all packed and got Matthew ready to spend the night at my mother's house since we would be leaving so early the next morning for the hospital.

     We set out for my moms on wed evening with Matthew, ready to put him down at my moms, when at 8pm I got a phone call from the hospital. They were backed up on inductions, so they told me not to come in in the morning and that they would call me when they had a bed for me. There were seven other ladies in front of me, so they said that it would probably be Thursday afternoon sometime but to call in the morning and see how things were going. So, totally bummed, I was actually sitting on my parents kitchen floor when i got the call and then after hearing the news i didn't want to get up but i did about twenty minutes later and packed Matty up again to go home.

    Thursday was spent sitting around the house, call the hospital every couple of hours to see where we were at on the list and basically trying hard to not go mentally insane. It was hard just sitting around knowing that i could have been, and i thought that i would have, been un pregnant by now, with an adorable baby in my arms. I ended up going and getting a pedicure that afternoon to try to get the hospital to call me and tell me to come in. It didn't work. By Thursday night, i was upset, tired, annoyed and really just wanted to go into labor.

    On Friday i woke up and decided i was not sitting around this house any longer, so i staged a sit in at my moms house determined not to leave until we were going to the hospital. I realize that you usually stage a sit in at the place that you are trying to ya know, make a change but i decided that staging a sit in at the hospital would just make the nurses mad and i didn't want mad nurses putting an IV in me, so my mothers house would have to do. Surprisingly the sit in didn't work. I was never called in. I called the hospital multiple times to see where i was at. Finally after sitting all day at my moms, seeing a movie ( The Vow ) and almost completely giving up, the hospital said that they would probably be calling me in in the middle of the night.

   Finally at 1am on Saturday morning we got the call, we have a bed for you, how soon can you be here? I told them a half hour. I called my mom, woke up Nicholas, got ready, put Matty in the car and we were off to my parents to drop Matty off. We drove up, threw Matty at my mother ( more or less ) and headed to the hospital. I was scared someone was gonna come in who was already in labor, and i would get booted once again. Luckily we made it to the hospital and started checking in. It was much nicer this time then last, seeing as how with Matthew my water had already broken and i had liquid running down my legs and they don't seem to care about that kinda thing.

   Our nurse, Susan came out to get us and took us back to our labor and delivery room. I got changed in the hospital gown, the nurse asked me a whole bunch of questions, while another nurse put my IV in. I hate the IV, seriously it sucks, luckily the nurse did it fairly well. They then started the penicillin in my IV. I hate penicillin. It burns. Like seriously burns your arm off. I told my nurse to put it on the lowest setting and she even diluted it a little bit and it still burned. Oh well. My nurse predicted that i would have the baby by noon, she was so wrong. : (

    At 7am, the nurses switched shifts and i got a new nurse. She checked me and i was at a 2. Disappointing. She then called Dr. McNeal who said that she would be in in a little bit to break my water to hopefully get things moving. I thought that she would be in around 9am, so i opted to get the epidural before she broke my water, so at about 845am, i got my epidural. Which was amazing compared to last time. It barely hurt putting it in and it actually worked, imagine that. I only wish that i had waited longer to get it done because my dr didn't come to break my water til about noon. : ( If i would have known i wouldn't have gotten it done so early.

     The rest of the day was spent sleeping, watching tv, texting, talking to nick and my mother and waiting impatiently. It was starting to get annoying being in labor for so long. At one point in the afternoon, they took me off the pitocin for an hour because i had stopped having contractions. They were hoping by stopping and restarting it, it would help them get stronger. Who stops having contractions when they are on pitocin? Me apparently. I was afraid that i was gonna end up having a c-section but i tried not to think about it.

      So 7pm came around and my old nurse Susan was back. When she arrived she asked my day nurse what time i ended up having my baby, the day nurse said she's at a 3. Susan misunderstanding said, she had her at 3pm? My day nurse said no, she is dilated to a 3. Yea, pathetic. So i got Susan back and she was determined to get me to have the baby before midnight.

      By 8pm i was dilated to a 4, by 9pm, i was dilated to a 5. Then within the next hour i went from a 5 to fully dilated. ( I don't understand why i couldn't have gone that fast earlier in the day ) They called Dr. McNeal and got me ready to start pushing. Right before i started pushing, Elizabeth started to grab hold onto my ribs with her toes, it hurt like none other. She did not want to come out. Then every time i would push, she would grab even harder. It was hard to breathe and hard to push with her grabbing onto my ribs and trying so desperately hard to stay in. I pushed for about 45 minutes, and at 11:46pm, after about 21 hours of labor, Elizabeth was finally welcomed into the world. I was happy to finally have her here and to no longer be in labor.

    She weighed 7lbs exactly and was 20 inches long. She kinda scared me for a bit because she didn't want to cry but the nurses said she was perfectly fine, she even got a 8/9 apgar score. She is a beautiful baby girl, i cant decide what color her eyes are and her hair at the moment is a light brown, blond, red in the sun, you decide what color at the moment. : )