Email to Danielle:
To Update you with the story : VERY LONG
My contractions started Thursday at around 6:00pm - but were pretty much the same contrax I've had previously,. where they were sporadic and inconsistent. So, I didn't pay much attention to it.
They continued that night and I fell asleep at around 12:00.
At around 1:15 I woke up to a REALLY bad contraction and had to go to the bathroom. So I went and I had the weirdest feeling that I wanted to pee my pants. So I grabbed a towel and put it on the bed in case I had an accident. No longer then 2 minutes later I felt a gush. I woke Dan up to have him grab more towels. Me being unconvinced that I was really in labor insisted that I "may" have had an accident. So I went to the toilet and hung myself over it...and lo and behold I was just leaking out water.
So I called my doc and told her my water broke and that I wanted to labor at home for a little. she told me that it was ok - but to make sure I got there no matter what in about 3 hours.
At that point we decided to start timing my contractions. They were already 4 mins apart and 40-50 seconds long! We were in a little bit of shock. I still wanted to labor a little bit at home -so we took our time getting things together and ready. Dan wrote e-mails to work while I cleaned up the bathroom. After about an hour, I told Dan we should leave because my pain was getting much worse..
So we got in the car and took the 40 min drive to the hospital. By the time I got there I almost couldn't walk to the front entrance of the hospital without having to stop for contractions.
Once they finally had me in the room, I was checked and was about 3cm dilated. (this was around 3:30)
The contractions at this point started getting progressively more painful and close together. They were coming at 1-1.5 minutes apart and lasting about 60 seconds each. So I literally wasn't getting any break. Finally at around 5:00 I asked for the EPI.
They put it in (with a nurse AND Dan holding me down..since I had to take the Epi with multiple contractions happening) and I will NEVER regret it. The pain of those last contractions were something I've never felt before. (I was also back laboring -which didn't help)
Once the Epi was in, it was seriously a piece of cake.
I labored for another couple hours..dilated pretty quickly...was actually ready to push at around 10:00 but the EPI had worn off and I wanted an increase before I had to push. So it took another 40-50 minutes for everything to finally kick in.
I started pushing at around 11 and had Grayson at 11:49.
All I can remember is while the baby was crowing the doctor saying "wow, you have a big boy in there" HAHAHAHAHA.
Dan was seriously amazing. He counted while I pushed, and cut the umbilical cord when Grayson was born. They put the baby on my chest for a little and then had to take him off to clean him up (and I had to get stitched because I had 3rd degree tears down there..along with an episiotomy)
Dan actually got to bond with the baby a lot at first because It took awhile for me to get cleaned and stitched.
I can honestly say that it has been the best experience of both our lives. Dan was a pretty unemotional person before Grayson was born..and he is completely different now. He actually cried when the baby was crowing and when he was born. I have NEVER seen Dan cry.
I've been breastfeeding and supplementing with formula. Grayson wants to eat more then I can give him - of course. ha. My boobs are HUGE, though. It's ridiculous. I don't really know what to wear because I would like to wear flowy sundresses still (because they're comfy and I still have some belly pooch), but they are very small in my chest and don't really cover them anymore.
Neither Dan or I are sleep deprived - if we're tired, we just nap when Grayson's napping and that has satisified our sleep needs. Actually, last night Gray prob would've slept through the night if we didn't wake him up to feed him!
Oh yea, the baby's DEF sleeping in our room right now....and it was Dan's idea. LOL. He was like "I want to be able to check on him easily"...we're going to have him sleep in our room for the rest of the week and then see what we want to do.
My mom actually already came out to see the baby and I believe Al and Michelle are coming this weekend, followed by my dad, rach, holly on Monday-thursday..and then Heather is flying in Friday morning to Monday morning.
I honestly was terrified before the baby was born to have so many people around because I wasn't sure how I'd be feeling...but I feel awesome. Way better then when I was pregnant!
I've have healed very well from my tears - it still feels uncomfortable but nothing near to what I expected or thought. Other then not working out, I've been doing everything I normally do.
I'm still in awe and have never been happier in my life! I knew I was excited to have a baby and really wanted a child - but nothing can compare to the feeling I have right now.
Can't wait for you guys to experience this also - it's truly something I never expected!
Again, sorry so long!
