Labor Day

Whelp, we had our baby! A little late and with a loud voice, we had a little GIRL!

Evelyn June

It all started on Sunday evening. I had been having semi-regular contractions every evening since the middle of last week. They would be crampy and would come on for a couple hours and die back down before going to bed each night. I tried EVERYTHING to keep them going and had basically given up on going into labor on my own and was planning for our induction on Tuesday. All day Saturday and Sunday I sat on my exercise ball and bounced and rolled and did everything I could. We took walks, and I tried my hardest to keep all my stomach muscles relaxed so this baby could do what it was suppose to do. But, like I said, I had pretty much given up hope that anything was going to happen. 

I can't say that I felt totally different Sunday, but looking back, things were definitely changing more than I thought. We went on a nice walk through a park with our pup and these "nothing contractions" continued throughout our walk which had never happened before. Still, I wasn't convinced that anything real would come of this. We headed home to watch the new episode of Dexter and I kept track of the time between contractions, they were definitely sticking around every 7-10 minutes. We headed up to bed and I was still pretty sure these things were gonna go away. Laying down, I was just starting to drift off to sleep, and BAM, wow that contraction took my breath away. It wasn't that terrible of a contraction, but definitely waaaaay different than what I had been feeling. I tried to ignore it and sleep through a few more contractions, then I gave up, hopped in the bath tub and gave myself an hour before I called the doctor. 

After laying in the tub and timing out contractions they were about 3-5 minutes apart, I finally was caving into the idea that I might actually be going into labor all on my own! I had so given up on that and was pretty sure my body (and the baby) were going to have to be coerced into this labor business, but boy was I wrong! By this time it was 1 am and I called the doctor, he said to c'mon down to the hospital. I woke up Jordan and told him the news. He needed to shower and shave and I was totally fine with that...until the contractions continued to get worse much faster than I expected. And they were now consistently 2-3 minutes apart. Holy moly, this was really happening! 

We get to the hospital and I was dilated to 3cm. I was having terrible back labor and that was the most difficult thing for me in that moment. When you first get to the hospital, you have to be on the monitor in the most uncomfortable bed for 30 minutes! Ugh, sitting still was the absolute last thing I could do. I knew things were going to be getting worse and more intense, but only having 2 minutes in-between contractions and the back pain was definitely starting to take its toll! We got admitted and check in to our real labor room and I couldn't help thinking that it wasn't real, that we weren't really going to be having a baby that night, that day! 

I was able to hop in the bath tub and I'm still not sure if that was a good thing, or a bad thing. I love taking baths and relaxing, and it felt so good to get into the water. And then the baby moved somehow, someway that changed everything. My contractions kicked on hard, and strong. Only 1-2 minutes apart I was no longer able to relax and talk myself through them. With the back labor and quick succession, I realize there was no way I was going to relax enough to dilate and have this baby any time soon! Sooo I got my epidural around 4 am(I never ruled out getting one, I was just hoping to be able to do it without one). It ended up being really ironic how my epidural worked. The anesthesiologist said it probably wasn't going to take away any pain in my back and down below, but would work around the front in my stomach. Well basically, he was wrong. It worked fabulously everywhere except in my stomach! And really had it not worked in my back I would have been more uncomfortable than I was, so I was grateful for the epidural I got! 

Just before 7 am I was checked again and we were at 7cm! I felt sooo relieved! I knew that getting the epidural was the right choice and everything would keep progressing just wonderfully. Because, you never know, sometimes labor can slow down once an epidural goes in! Only about an hour and a half later, the next doctor came on and wanted to check and get a baseline for her day. And lo and behold, we were complete, 10 cm! I could have cried I was so happy! My water still hadn't broke, so she broke it for me and she wanted to let me "labor down." She wanted me to feel like I had to have a bowel movement before we started pushing. After she broke my water, my contractions picked up even more and got even more intense. I never felt like I needed to have a bowel movement, but the intense pain I was feeling up front was just absolutely crazy. They decided to let me push! 

Dr. Bauer helped bring Evelyn into the world! 

Jordan was the best coach I could have ever asked for. He talked me through every contraction leading up to pushing and while I was pushing, he was even better. He said all the right things and did all the right things. We were both worried that he wasn't going to be able to handle seeing the whole labor process, but boy were we wrong! He was so intrigued by it all and watched the whole thing! As I started to push, all they could see was a full head of hair! I won't lie, I was so excited about having a baby with a whole bunch of hair! Jordan's job was to call out a boy or a girl when the baby came out. After only 15 minutes of pushing, when that moment came, he was speechless and stunned. We had a little girl! 

I never thought that this day would have gone so fast and so smoothly. I am so grateful for how speedy it went and how truly amazing the experience was. We had the best nurses and our doctor was one amazing lady! I am lucky that I didn't have to labor for longer than I did and that really, our little girl went pretty easy on me! I can't wait to experience everything else in this life with our little girl, I can't wait to watch her grow! Now comes the fun part; sleepless nights, poopy diapers, and lots and lots of baby kisses!