Natalie Ray is finally here!

Well out of all of the things I tried to help get her out I honestly think it was the acupuncture that did it! I had my appointment at 10:30am on the 20th and went into labor that night at around 9:30pm. I wasn't sure if I was in labor but my contractions started hurting more than they had before around 12:30 and I called my midwife at 2. I was 2cm dilated when they checked me the first time. The first nurse we had was horrible but we got to the hospital at 2:30 but luckily her shift ended at 6.

I have to say that the Bradley Method classes really helped with teaching us about the counter pressure to help with contractions. I'm surprised I didn't have huge bruises on my back from how much pressure I was having my boyfriend put on my back. I dilated to 5cm by 10:30am and I was so excited with my progress. We had a tub in our room and that helped a lot with contractions and my hunger (I hadn't had anything to eat since 7 the night before ). I tested positive for GBS so I had to have an IV but they gave me a hep lock (sp?) which made it easy for me to move around.

I got checked again at 2:30pm (I think) and I had only dilated to 6cm so my midwife started talking about possibly doing pitocin. I REALLY didn't want to do pitocin so, this may sound funny, I pictured myself dilating more with each contraction. At 9pm she checked again and I was 9 3/4cm and said I could probably push past the last 1/4. Honestly by then I was so exhausted and so hungry that I told my boyfriend if I was only at 7cm or so then I think I wanted to go ahead with the pitocin. So after a few "practice" pushes she said I could go ahead and start pushing. For some strange reason my contractions never got closer together than 5 minutes apart, I had had cluster contractions but they never progressively got closer. 

When I was pushing I had to wait 5 minutes to push again and the waiting was brutal. I was so tired my midwife was telling me when I was having a contraction and that it was time to push again lol. I pushed her out in 45 minutes and I think I could've done it faster if my contractions had been closer together. But Natalie Ray came into the world at 9:54pm on her due date! She weighed 8.2 lbs (wasn't expecting her to be that big) and 20 inches long. I had a second degree tear but other than that everything went great . I did it almost all naturally like I had planned. I did get the non narcotic drug Nubain twice which only made me more tired but it did take the edge off the contractions for a while. 

I wish I had been more rested for after the delivery so I could have enjoyed her more right after but I'm really happy with my birth experience and the nursing staff we ended up having made our experience that much better. My boyfriend was amazing during the whole birth and I couldn't have had a better man at my side (my mom was a great help as well ). Sorry if any of this was repetitive or irrelevant in any way, I'm still catching up on sleep (at least trying to) but I wanted to share our story with you ladies and wish the rest of you who are still pregnant the best of luck!

This is her sleeping a few hours after being born

And this was taken today (my favorite picture of her so far)