Rachel Colleen is here

Hi Ladies.  I haven't really posted all that often but I wanted to share our joy and birth story as I was a big poster on TTC+35 and I want to let all my bumpies (Baze that is for you) know that our little girl is here.

I was scheduled for an induction 1 week after my due date. We went to the hospital on 5/15 at 10pm to be induced. When we got there I was hooked up to some monitors and much to my surprise I was having contractions. I had no clue. They gave me a miso pill to soften my cervix and we tried to get some sleep. Unfortunately that wasn't so easy for me so I ended up taking an ambien around 1:30am. I think I got about 1 or 2 hours of sleep before the contractions started getting a little uncomfortable but nothing too bad they just kept me up. At this point I was at 1.5 cm.

Some time later that morning I was given a second miso pill.  About 1 hour after that my contractions were getting worse and were right on top of one another. They checked me again and I was 2 cm. I was doing well with the contractions with breathing, a bath and the birthing ball.  The birthing ball was the best but because I have some extra padding in my middle they were having a hard time keeping up with LO heart rate. So they asked me to stay in bed. I was getting back into bed and had a really painful contraction that put me into tears. I had a few more that were really painful and I asked for my epidural at 11:30 am. I had instant relief. But my blood pressure dropped to 90/50 and I ended up with dry heaves. Not pleasant but it was better than the contractions in my book. They checked me after my epi and I was at 4 cm. And I was at 4 cm the next 3 times they checked me. 

I dozed on and off all day but didn't really get much good quality sleep with all of the checks and that stupid blood pressure cuff that was set to go off every 10 minutes or so. It took me a while to progress and I found out later that they had put a note in my chart saying that I would most likely need a c-section.  But I feel very fortunate that my body finally decided to get into gear. At 7pm I was 7cm, at 9pm I was 9 cm and by 10pm I was ready to push. 

I pushed for a little over an hour and with the help of an episiotomy, our beautiful daughter Rachel Colleen was born at 11:17pm on 5/16.  She was 8lbs 8oz, 20.25 inches long.  She is healthy and absolutely beautiful. My husband was an amazing coach. We watched the entire delivery in a mirror and he cut the cord - two things which we though we didn't want to do but we were utterly amazed. He is an amazing father and husband.

 I'll post pictures soon.