She's here!!!

I would like to present Elody Elizabeth Heaton. Born on June 7, 2009 at 3:03 pm. She weighed 7 lbs 3 ounces and was 19 inches long.

Sunday morning at 5:16 am I woke saying, "My water just broke!" I ran into the bathroom and cleaned up. My adrenalin was going and my thoughts were scattered. Then I heard a little voice outside my bathroom. Beauchene had just woke up and came into our room. Of all the timings, of all the mornings. (My first thoughts were, Elody came and woke him us telling him that she is coming!) I tried to cuddle him for a few minutes, but he was not being sleepy. Matt finally went in and got Jileigh to come in our bed and cuddle him. He accepted that and we continued to get ready to go. I had only had a couple of contractions, but history tells me that I only have a couple of hours after my water breaks to push out the baby. (That wasn't so in this case.) Matt called his mom and off we went to the hospital.

The contractions were coming very slowly, about 1 an hour. I finally consented to having a pitocin IV put in my arm. I was still at 3 cm dilated. At 4 cm the contractions started getting hard. I spent about an hour with Matt and the nurse pushing on my knees during the contractions and I was listening to my hypnobirthing CD. After I had had enough of that, I was barely at 6cm. So I went into the shower on my hands and knees with Matt spraying the water on my body and pushing on my hips during the contractions. After an our of that, she checked me again and I was at 6+ cm. The contractions were as painful as if I were 9-10 cm, but I wasn't and I had a long way to go before I would be. That's when I threw in the towel. I got my very first epidural. I still went another 4 hours before I was dilated to 10 cm; but instead of being in murderous pain, I took a nice nap. After my first push, the doctor realized that the baby was indeed posterior. He tried to turn her, but she turned right back. So I pushed a couple more times and she was out. My doctor was rather amazed that I pushed her out so well and that I didn't tear or damage my perineum at all. She cried when he was cleaning her out, but she settled right down after he gave her to me. She already likes her momma. She nursed really well on both sides and was quite content. It was so weird for me to have my lower half total numb. Once I made a slight turn and my leg fell off the bed but I didn't even know it until the nurse picked it back up. After they moved me to the recovery floor and the numbing wore off, I surprisingly felt really good. This is the best I have felt after giving birth to a baby.