labor and delivery

In the car ride over to the hospital, my contractions went from 10 min to 5 min apart. They stayed like this until I was hooked up to a fetal monitor, contraction counter thing and was given an iv for fluids. Ooooof course the contractions slowed as soon as they were monitoring them! Since my water had already broken and my contractions weren't getting any closer I had to be induced so that Parker didn't run the risk of getting an infection.

After an hour or so, they transferred me to a delivery room so we could prepare for little peanut.
On a side note... My nurse was amazing! She was so kind and encouraging as we hung out from about 10:00pm until her shift change at 7:00am. Then she snagged us another fantastic nurse for the rest of the labor.

Anyways. I got an epidural around 12:30am. Which was no big deal really. I could barely feel her poking me. Then they did pitocin to helping my contractions along. Seriously that epidural was a great idea. Looking at the contraction and fetal monitor we were able to watch Parker's heartbeat (which stayed level the whole time) and my contractions (which were happening so often but I couldn't feel a thing!).

While we were waiting we slept, talked to the nurses, and got to visit a little with my parents, Matt's parents and Shayla. The whole "labor" part went by really quickly and was painless. It made for a pretty great experience.

Then around 11:15am Parker decided to make his way into the world. I was ready to start pushing with the help of the nurse, Matt and Shayla. I had been shifting back and forth on my sides to help Parker move into position so the epidural was weaker on my left side. This ended up being good though because I was able to actually feel when the contractions were happening. When one started I had to do 3 ten second pushes, then rest until the next one happened. The doctor and nurses were so encouraging telling me how great I was doing and that they could see his head. It made me want to push harder to get him out! It only took 30 minutes of pushing until he was born at 11:46am.

Immediately they wiped him off a bit and handed him right to me. I was so overwhelmed with love that I couldn't stop crying and smiling. He was a perfect 7lbs. 13oz. and 20 inches long. He had some dark hair and daddy's nose. The nurses allowed Matt and I some skin to skin time with our new little boy. That was so sweet to be able to finally hold in our arms the baby that had grown in my belly for the past 9 months.