Mason's birth story... a little long!
Sorry this is so late! I can't believe how busy I have been.. breastfeeding has been very time consuming and Mason loves to be held so it gives me very little time for much else! I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year!
Here is Mason's birth story...
On Thursday, Dec 2nd, I went to prenatal water aerobics at 6pm. After water aerobics, I called my doctor because I hadn't felt the baby move since much earlier that afternoon and I was concerned. The doctor told me to come to the hospital and by the time we got there it was about 9pm. They monitored the baby in triage and everything was fine, about 20 minutes later I started having contractions about 2-3 minutes apart. They were consistant but not very painful, so the doctor suggested I go home and try to labor at home as much as possible. I was still only 2cm dilated.
My husband and I got home and after about an hour the contractions were very painful. I called the doctor and headed back to the hospital around midnight. I was checked and was now a little over 3 cm dilated. I was admitted with contractions still 2-3 minutes apart at 2am.
I had pretty intense labor pains all night and didn't sleep. The doctor came to check on me around 7am, I was 4 cm dilated and he offered me the epidural. I decided to try to hold out a little longer and so I was given fentanyl. The fentanyl did relax me a lot but it did little for the pain.
At 10am, the doctor came in and I was still 4cm, and she decided to break my water. Around 1030am I was ready for the epidural and I was surprised at how quickly they were able to give it to me. Shortly after getting the epidural things were so much better! I felt a lot less stressed and relaxed.
I was able to rest a little with the epidural and the doctor checked me again at 1pm and I was 5 cm. She said they would start pitocin if I didn't progress quicker in the next few hours.
About an hour later (2pm) I started to feel a lot of pressure and I was very uncomfortable. I was checked again at 3pm and I was 10 cm. I was shocked that I had gone from 5-10cm in about 2 hours! They sat me up and I was told I had to wait an hour before pushing to let the baby move down as much as possible on his own. That hour was torture, I had a strong urge to push!
Finally I began to push at 345pm and Mason was born at 549pm on Friday December 3rd. He weighed 8lbs 9oz, 21 inches long. The pushing was definitely the most difficult and uncomfortable part of the whole labor. I had a wonderful nurse, without her I don't think my experience would have been as great. Mason came with a full head of hair and screamed for about 30 minutes after birth.
I love being a mom and I am thankful that everything went so smooth! Mason is doing great, we did end up going to NY for Christmas and he did so well in the car.
Thanks for letting me share! Hopefully I will be around more often now that I am starting to convince Mason to let me put him down for naps 
Re: Mason's birth story... a little long!
Congratulations! He's so cute, and I love the name Mason--that's our boy name for hypothetical baby #3, should we have a boy.
I'm glad your labor experience was pretty good. I had the same experience with the epidural. It took forever to get to 5, and then once I got the epi, I progressed to 10 within an hour. That's pretty nice, isn't it?
Enjoy these early days, and good luck with BFing!
Jennie