She has arrived

On February 24, 2010 at 5:04pm I officially joined the club of motherhood.
On February 23, 2010, I had a doctors appointment. The doctor told me I was still 1 cm dilated but my cervix was nice and soft. I could give birth at anytime from that day until a week from that moment. I went home and cried. The doctor told me to come in on thursday to have all my fluids checked and get an ultrasound and discuss inducing labor if this kept on. God bless this child, she decided to come on Wednesday.

My water broke at 3:45am. It was a dramatic gush that continued. My hombre asked "Do you think I should stay home from work today". I told him, yeah I think that would be a good idea. :-) We headed to the hospital an hour later. But not before stopping at Starbucks for a breakfast sandwich. I'm not a pleasant hungry person and I knew once I got to the hospital there would be no more food until the child had entered the world. It was quite tasty.

I remained calm and dedicated to bringing the child into the world, naturally and with as little screaming as possible. I did not scream. I cried. SIlent tears ran down my face as I sat through intense labor pains for four hours. At 8am the real contractions kicked in, shortly after they put me on pitocin to speed up labor. YIKES!!! It intensifies pain that's for sure. By noon I had given up on the whole...natural, without drugs, madness and asked for an epidural. I was having beyond horrible contraction pain and they were coming every 3 to 4 minutes. I had to bear down and sit still for the epidural. Done. And by the way, the epidural is no walk in the park either. If the nurses or doctor could have given me a specific time as to when I'd be ready to deliver I might have been able to hold out up to 2 more hours with the pain, but the window was to wide. Anytime from noon to after midnight is what they told me. I would have lost my mind and had to deliver in the crazy house if I hadn't taken the epidural.

Birth- pushing and such. An amazing and primitive process. A miracle. It was surreal. I'm very happy my friend filmed the delivery, because it was like a dream. My child, my beautiful precious blessing is here. She's bright eyed and alert, healthy and beautiful. Ten fingers, ten toes and everything else in its place. A blessing beyond my comprehension.

I'm sore, aching but recovering. I'm sleep deprived and a little delirious as my baby girl loves to party around midnight to 4am. I'm breastfeeding and my nipples are on fire and I find myself watching her sleep all day and night, depriving myself of even more sleep and I have to say, it's all worth it. A hundred billion times over...worth it.

I'm in love.