Baby #3 - another positive (elective) induction story

Taylor was born on December 26th ~ 6lbs 12oz 20.5in.

We went in for my (elective) induction on December 26th (I was 39w 2d and was 2cm dilated, 75% effaced and cervix was "soft"). We checked in L&D at 7:30am. Doctor came in at 9:30 to break my water. I walked until 12:00 and although I was feeling some minor contractions and they were showing up 4 minutes apart on the monitor my cervix was not changing. We put in a movie and started the pitocin around 12:30. At 1:00 I started having contractions strong enough to breath through but still about 4 minutes apart and not very painful. By 1:30 they had become quite painful and we shut the movie off -- at 2:30 I asked for an epidural because I was having back labor (AGAIN--also had this with my 2 other deliveries) and had "doubling" and "tripling" (back to back and back to back to back contractions that felt like someone was pounding a knife in my back with a hammer). There was little to no relief between contractions and I was miserable. It took the anethesiologist 25 minutes to get there and insert the epidural (but of course it seemed like 25 hours to me ) but fortunately by that time I believe my baby had flipped in the birth canal because my contractions moved from my back to the front and spaced-out (although the contractions were just as painful). I had the epidural and was comfortable by 3:00. Although I had no pain I felt pressure in my bottom and told the nurse--she called the doctor and 10 minutes after getting the epidural (2 hours after starting the pitocin b/c I was only 2cm dilated) my dr announced that I was "6 centimeters" (then I had a contraction while she was checking me) "No wait, 8 centimeters dilated". After two more contractions the doctor checked me again and said I was 9cm and put on her gown. The next contraction I started pushing and our beautiful son, Taylor was born 2 pushes later! My total labor and delivery was 6 hours (but just 2 1/2 hours after getting the pitocin and actually entering "active labor" -and I delivered about 10 minutes after getting the epidural - my first two deliveries were 8 hours and 11 hours). My son looked great except he wasn't crying/breathing at the level they wanted him to when they evaluated him, possibly because he came through the birth canal so quickly or because the cord was wrapped around his neck 1 time--the nurse had suspected this because of his variable heartrate during my contractions), so they took him up to the NICU. My husband went with him and they reassured me that they would take me up as soon as I was stitched and the placenta was delivered and my bleeding was under control. They said our baby would be fine and there would be no long-term effects but they still wanted to be safe. About an hour later they took me up to see him and said he was doing so well that they were allowing him to come back down to labor and delivery with me as long as I did "skin to skin" with him for a few hours to help him "transition". After 3 hours of skin to skin his breathing was 100%! We sent him to the nursery that night to get some sleep and he threw up amniotic fluid the entire night (nurse said he must have took a big gulp on his way out) but once he got the yucky stuff out of his lungs he did great. He's an easy baby so far. Sleeping 4 hours then 2.5 hours between night feedings and other than crying for food and from wet/poopy diapers he's low-maintaince which I hear is common of the 3rd child