AnnaBeth is here!!!

That's right folks! AnnaBeth has finally entered the world! As you know, the plan was to have a foley catheter help dilate my cervix and then check into the hospital at 10pm on Wednesday night. That's what we did and when we got there we were told that nothing was really going to happen until 4am when they would hook me up to pitocin to get contractions started. I'd been having some early contractions but nothing major and the catheter hadn't fallen out yet. The hospital let me eat and Kent and I tried to rest and pass the time. Lemme tell ya, hours and hours of Nick at Nite is NOT that entertaining. At about 2am they started my IV of fluids. Around 3:30am the catheter still hadn't fallen out and I was getting hungry again so I had one more meal.

Around 4:30am the pitocin was started. I didn't really noticed contractions but was going to the bathroom A LOT. Around 8am, Dr. Hunt came in to check on me. I had just been in the bathroom and had to go really, really bad but couldn't. Turns out, the catheter had half fallen out and that's why I couldn't pee. Dr. Hunt removed and said I was at 5cm and she broke my water. After that I decided to sit in the rocking chair and use the bed to prop up my legs. Once I did that, the contractions were more noticeable. They were getting progressively worse but rocking seemed to help me get through them.

Sometime after 9 I started getting some pretty bad contractions one right after the other. After crying through about 6 of them I finally decided to get the epidural. I was almost to 8cm which was a lot farther along than I thought I'd get before asking for drugs. The anesthesiologist came in and I had about 3 more really bad contractions before he was able to get everything in. It wasn't long before I started feeling the effects. By now it was just after 10 so Kent and I tried to get some rest while I dilated to 10cm.

Within a couple of hours I was at 10cm and at a plus one. They had me sit up in bed to help bring AnnaBeth the rest of the way down so I could start pushing. At about 245pm it was time to push! However, I was SOOO numb from the drugs, that I couldn't feel anything...even my stomach was numb! Dr. Hunt came in and had me push and even though I was doing it the right way, she had my epidural turned off. It took probably an hour or so for it to wear off enough where I started to feel major cramping and lots of pressure from her head. About an hour or so after that Dr. Hunt came back and I was really hurting!!

By now I was doing my best to get a deep breath for each push but since I was now crying, it was getting more difficult to accomplish that. It finally got to the point where I felt like I could do was push because the pain and pressure was too much to handle. And finally all of that hard work paid off and AnnaBeth's head was out! A push later I got her shoulders out and that's when Dr. Hunt told me reach down and finish delivering my baby, who by the way, was already SCREAMING!! Dr. Hunt helped pull her up a little bit and I grabbed her underneath her arms and pulled her the rest of the way out and up onto my belly. She was so beautiful and as Kent pointed out later, very clean! No blood on her at all! Kent cut her cord and Dr. Hunt started sewing me up. I asked her how bad it was and she said I had 2nd degree tears (no episiotomy) and had a small tear up near where pee comes out but she didn't have to stitch it.

While I was getting stitched Kent went over to where she was getting cleaned up, weighed, and measured. She was 7 lbs 11.6 oz and 20 inches! She got all wrapped up and then brought her over to me. She had her eyes open and was so alert!! Kent got my parents out of the waiting room and they came in to see us. Mom and Dad were so happy! At some point she got her first Hepatitis B shot and her first full bath, although I don't remember exactly when...it's all such a blur!

At 6:15 she was acting hungry so a nurse showed me how to get her to latch on. She did it correctly right away and nursed for half an hour! We took lots of pictures during our couple of days at the hospital and even had the professional pictures done today before we left. Nursing has been going well and she's been a perfect baby!! Enjoy the picture slideshows that I put together of our pictures plus the hospital ones =) Each one has a song to it so to avoid musical confusion, you'll have to just view them in original view on the slide website.

http://www.slide.com/r/_j88pU4q4z8M38QAum7nFc0-EcsbsP2U?previous_view=lt_embedded_url

http://www.slide.com/r/_pWhgCQe5z-Rm2rPz1NithOHNeEBZ0zo?previous_view=lt_embedded_url