I had my 39 week doctor's appointment on Friday. After that appointment I had some cramping that lasted into Saturday morning, which turned into very mild contractions and spaced very far apart. Around 3:00 pm I realized that the contractions were probably the very early signs of labor, but I wasn't really concerned. As the day went on they were getting more painful, but would come and go. Just after 7:00 I took a shower and the contractions were getting much more painful and closer together. At 8:30 I called Michele and asked her to come over and watch Ella for the night. I knew this was it. Brian and I have conflicting times about when we arrived at the hospital. I say it was just after 9:00, but he says it was closer to 9:30. Either way, I was admitted right away and hooked up to an IV because I wanted an epidural and needed at least one bag of fluids before I could get it. Also, they needed to run my blood work, do some other tests and then I needed to wait for the anesthesiologist to finish with another patient and there was also another person who was ahead of me. I was in the worse pain of my life when he finally came around 10:15 pm. My doctor told me if I didn't receive the epidural I would probably have the baby before 11:00. I didn't believe her or didn't care at this point. I finally received the epidural and as soon as he was done my water broke and it was time to push. About five pushes later the baby was out and the epidural never had time to work so my doctor is "giving me credit for a natural delivery." That meant nothing at the time, but once I had the baby the pain stopped and it was amazing to meet her for the first time! Here are some pictures just after she was delivered.
