To the 9

Tuesday afternoon after my OB appt. I came home (excited!) and thought it might be a good idea to pack some things together in case I went into labor. I finished watching the little guy I babysit and Scott went to take a final (at the last minute) so he could be ready to go to the hospital if needed. When he came home I had thought of a list a mile long of the things that we still needed, so we headed to Wal-Mart and Target. (Thanks be to gift cards) After we walked around for 3.5hrs and my pain level was the same, I decided we should probably go home and sleep, or at least attempt to. Around 2am I woke up and thought maybe we should go to the hospital now. I woke up Scott and took a shower- he thought I was dumb to want to wash my hair before I gave birth (MEN! This proves they know nothing about women) After my shower I decided that I wanted to wait until the labor and delivery area opened at 5am, so we snoozed another 3 hours. At 6:30 I woke him up again and we headed out the door.

I was admitted at 7 and dialated to a 5. By noon, Scott was super bored and asked the nurses that came in if there was anyway to "speed things up". About 30 min later they came in to break my water (ummm... I thought I was in charge of the show....) I was still at a 5, but I could actually feel the contractions at this point. An hour later I was 6cm and had pain of a 3 on their scale (how are we supposed to know what a 10 on the scale feels like?? I told them I've never had my arm cut off so I wouldn't know) The REAL pain set in about 30 min later when I dialated to a 9. I literally thought I was going to DIE. (and now I can tell you what a 10 on the pain scale feels like....) I changed my mind about going natural at this point and asked for an epidural. Melissa Folks, my heroine, perhaps next time I'll be inducted into your club, but I could only tolerate the pain at 9cm for about half a millisecond before I was screaming for the anesthesiologist! An hour later, Matthew decided to join us.

When they were cleaning him up, Scott told me, "He's not that ugly...", to which the nurse who was cleaning Matthew looked stunned. (who says that about their own child?? WE DO.) After which followed,"yes, I'm pleasantly surprised." The nurse's jaw almost dropped to the floor. You see, I prepared myself for an ugly baby. In fact, I think most newborns are quite ugly- just a personal opinion that I share with REAL friends... But we got lucky and had a cute one sent to us. I think it's so I could love him at 3am when he's crying and poopy and not latching on and my hormones are going a little crazy..... and you get the idea.