Baby sister is here!

On 1/4 I had my 38 week appointment and the midwife said I was 4cm and 80% effaced. Say WHAT?!? And I wasn't in labor...how?

That night I felt crampy and went to bed thinking I would maybe just wake up in full labor.

At 4:53am on 1/5/12, I woke up to a really intense contraction. Since I'd been having contractions on and off for a couple of weeks, I wasn't sure that this was the real thing. But 20 minutes later, I had another big contraction that caused me to double over in pain. Then, 13 minutes later, then suddenly 7 minutes after that, they kept coming. At 6am I woke Jeremy up and told him I was prety sure this was the day!

Jeremy's parents were on their way to our house, but I was in so much pain and scared to death of giving birth in the car, so I called our fantastic neighbor Jennie to come sit at our house until they got there. She was so understanding (thanks again Jennie!).

We got to the hospital around 7 and I signed in and basically demanded my epidural - the front desk lady was like, "umm, ok." But when they checked me and saw that I was 8cm dilated, I felt vindicated - and not a little freaked out that it might be too late to get my epidural.

"No worries," my nurse and midwife assured me in calm voices, "you'll get your epidural. All we have to do is get this entire IV bag into you and run some labs and then you can get the epidural." Ahh, how reassuring. Did I mention I was EIGHT CENTIMETERS and moving KINDA FAST???

I have never felt pain like that in my life. And I hope I never will again. We're talking "clutching the rails of the bed, groaning, moaning and screeching pain." Not cute.

The good news is I did get my epidural, and by then I was already at a 9 or 10. So basically, I did labor unmedicated. Woot. Here's some advice - DON'T.

Luckily I did not have to push unmedicated, because it took an hour and 15 minutes. You see, as we learned moments before the doc yanked her out with the vacuum, she was sunny side up - the little stinker!! I am going to milk this for all kinds of guilt trips down the road.

Our beautiful Julianna Mae was born at 10:06am, 7lbs, 9oz and 19.5 in long. She is just perfect! Luckily, she was a great nurser right off the bat, and we haven't faced the challenges that we did trying to get Jonathan to eat those first few weeks.

Jonathan is a sweet big brother. He loves to run into the room after school and peer at baby sister. He knows that we have to be soft with the baby ("no hit it?") and likes to give her kisses on the top of her head. Otherwise he pretty much ignores her. That's about as much as we could expect from a 2 year old.

Now, how to change the URL of this blog to babydmakesfour.blogspot.com?