January 4th

January 4th is one of the biggest days of my life now: the wonderful day I became a mother. Also the day that I slept the least out of probably my whole life. The night before we went swimming with Matt's sister, brother and his wife and their kids. It was lots of fun and so nice for my huge pregnant body to be in water. So we came home that night and went to bed. I woke up just a few hours later at 1:30 a.m. because my water had broken. We left for the hospital. I got there and they hooked me up to monitors. I had regular, not too strong contractions but strong enough to keep me awake until the normal morning hours. At this point they slowed and almost stopped. To keep this from being forever long I think I will just list the memorable events from this point forward.

- I went in not wanting to have an epidural. Not 100% sure why, but I just didn't want it.

- All morning some of the equipment in my room wasn't working, so I had this I.T. guy popping in and out all morning. Somewhat awkward.

- About 10:00 am they started me on pitocin. Thank goodness, I wanted to get things moving. I'd already been there too long for me.

- Early afternoon I decided to get pain medication through the I.V. which was a bad plan. It made me excessively dizzy and nauseous. After that I decided that the pain from the contractions was much better than the pain medication.

- Anna was posterior, I think was the term they used, I had to work to get her forward, part of what took so long.

- About 5:00 pm after now 16 hours I was completely exhausted and about ready to go ahead and get the epidural. Luckily the nurse that came in at this point was really helpful and coached me a little to help me manage the pain and get things moving. I managed to stay natural which I was happy about :).

- The last centimeter or so took forever. She was turned sideways and wouldn't turn the right way. Later we found out that the reason was probably because she had the cord wrapped around her neck.

- Pushing was such a relief. I much preferred this part because I was actually doing something. I finally started pushing just before 7:00 and Annalee made her appearance at 7:29.

I felt so relieved. I was tired enough that I think I mostly just had complete disbelief that she was actually here after waiting so long. But it was amazing holding her. She weighed in at 8 pounds and half an ounce, but sure didn't look that big. Before weighing her, everyone guessed she'd be 7 something. She measured at 20.5 inches. And now she's here. It's great.