D Day!

All throughout my pregnancy I was a little confused as to what my actual due date was. The initial ultrasound said June 4, but my Dr. used May 26 for everything...starting in mid-May during my weekly appointment, my Dr. kept telling me, she will be here any day! Well any day kept coming and going, so by my third appointment of hearing this, my Dr. thought it was best to put a deadline to the madness :) So he said if she wasn't here by June 3, to come to the hospital at 6 AM to be induced. So just like every previous day, June 3 came and still no baby :)

So here I am in my 5:30 AM pregnant glory

(it is funny how fast I forgot how big I was!)

By 7:00 AM I was all hooked up to about a million monitors, cords, etc. I was a very good girl when they gave my the IV, I was only about 90% ready to pass out...BUT, the excellent news is, I didn't. I definitely should have earned a sticker for that.

My doctor came by at 8:30 to see how I was progressing (I was dilated to a 3 at the time--and had been for 2 weeks) He broke my water at that time which really got the contractions started! I happily got an epidural at 9:30, and let me tell you, it was HEAVEN! 45 minutes of REAL contractions (about 2 minutes apart) was enough of the natural labor experience for me :) I, like any sane person, was a little hesistent to have a large needle poked into my back...but at the time I would have pretty much done anything! Kyle, per hospital policy, had to leave the room for the procedure. When they let him back in, I was a whole new person!

From 9:30 - 11:30 we kicked back and watched an ESPN classic, a 1984 Celtics vs. Lakers NBA finals game (you know, looking back on it, you would have thought Kyle would have let ME pick what we should watch) but it was enough to finish me off (maybe I will get a recording of that game to play about a week earlier with my next child). When the nurse came in at noon, she happily reported that I was fully dilated!

here I am enjoying the game

The next hour and a half really seemed to fly by. It was full of resisting pushing, finally pushing, being told to hold off on pushing just until my Dr. could get there. By about 1:20 the nurse was panicking a little bit that my Dr. still hadn't arrived, she was frantically paging and calling his office. By 1:35, my Dr. finally arrived. At 1:40 our sweet little Hadley made her debut!

Kyle cutting the cord

After I confirmed, she was a girl (I am probably alway going to be skeptical of ultrasounds), the doctor exclaimed, "Wow, this is a big baby! How much do you think she weighs Kyle?" Kyle was like, "I don't know? You're the one that does this every day" Then the Dr. said, "Don't you go fishing?" I thought that was funny!

Well, here's the verdict! About as close to 9lbs as they come :)

The proud dad holding her immediately after they cleaned her up.

And finally the moment I have been waiting a few years for!

The day couldn't have gone better. I was excited and anxious and nervous going into it, but everything just seemed to go so smoothly and ended wonderfully with a beautiful, healthy baby girl!