birth story

Two days before my due date, on Friday morning July 8th I got a call from the hospital to go ahead and come in for my scheduled induction. I had a induction for 2 reasons
1. When Josie was on her way Joe was all the way in Arizona on a fire, and had to drive all night, after a 16 hr shift on the fire line, to make it to the hospital. We didn't want that to happen again.
2. I had been having some major but irregular contractions for about a week, they were getting extremely uncomfortable and annoying, to be completely honest! It seemed they came on the strongest during the middle of the night, so I was also extremely sleep deprived.

We arrived at the hospital and got me checked in and started my pitocin all within an hour. Everyone was pretty sure that I would have the baby before noon, seeing as I already was measuring 4 1/2 cm. How that baby girl wasn't already coming on her own is a mystery to me?! My guess is she would have come that day anyway, but no one really knows. Well noon came, and went then 2 pm came and went and I was progressed to a 6, it took 4 hr to get to a 7, and then about 15 minutes to get to a 10.

I had told the nurses that I had been feeling my contractions (I had an epidural) but that they didn't hurt, they told me that if I needed more medicine to ask, but I said I was okay, well I learned my lesson, if you start to feel anything at all, get more medicine!!!! My epidural wore off right when Samantha was suppose to make her appearance, and they had to get the order for more which takes what seemed like an hour, (really 15 min) in the meantime I am refusing to push, because I am too scared to do it until I get more medicine, and I am feeling the PAIN!!! Contractions are really strong on pitocin, and I was grabbing the rail on the side of the bed, crying, but trying not to cry too much and keep my cool, for some reason I was worried about worrying Joe. Why I was thinking about Joe's feelings at a time like that I don't know!? Finally the medicine came and I will tell you what, that was the best feeling ever, to feel the medicine rush over me and numb everything. I only felt extreme pain for about 20 minutes, but it was 20 minutes long enough for me to know that I will always have an epidural!!
The doctor came in and he said to push, I did, then I pushed again and he said okay stop, the cord was wrapped around her neck, then he told me to push a little bit, yep she was here after 2 1/2 pushes, and there was a knot in the umbilical cord, glad she was getting all the oxygen and nutrients she needed, it was obvious that she put a knot in the cord early on.
She came out screaming and kicking and mad, and she had a the darkest fullest head of black hair that I had ever seen on a newborn! She was healthy and strong, really strong, she was already trying to move her little head around At three weeks she lifts her entire chest off the ground and looks right up at me, she will sit on my lap and hold her head by herself, she seems to want to be up and moving already!
We love Samantha!