All the gory details

So, I had a Doctor's appointment on Elayna's due date, the 6th. He asked me if I wanted to wait another week, at the most, or schedule to have her induced as soon as possible. You tell me what the 10-month pregnant lady chose.
That is why, on Thursday morning (the 7th), we were blurrily checking into the hospital at 5:15 am. When I first told Ryan that I has actually scheduled to be to the hospital that early in the morning, I was afraid he would refuse to go with me. Luckily for me, Ryan is great, and he cheerily exclaimed he would love to wake up at 4:30 AM so we could go sit in a hospital for the next 3 days. (Okay, he agreed to go. At least he didn't refuse.)

The nurse started me on the Pitocin at about 6:30 AM, and at 10:10 the contractions were hurting pretty hard, so I asked for the epidural. At that point I was dilated to a 5. When the anesthesiologist finally got there at about 10:45, and had the epidural started by 11:00,the nurse checked me and said I was all the way dilated and ready to have a baby! Whoa! That went fast! Mom says if they would have checked me before they put in the epidural, they wouldn't have given it to me. Thank goodness they didn't check! The Doctor came, I pushed through 2 contractions and Elayna was born at 11:32 AM. 8 lbs, 13 ozs, and 20.5 inches long.

Besides the awful pain I had to live through until the epidural started, it was a pretty nice and easy birth. And, luckily, I've pretty much forgotten how much it hurt already. Isn't the mind a wonderful thing?

Here is a picture of Elayna being calmed down by her Daddy, just like Katie did when she was born. Still frowning, you will notice, but not screaming as before.

 

This is her calmed down and ready to nurse.

 

Elayna trying to eat Katie's finger.

 

The hospital hires professional photographers to take pictures of the baby that don't look all scrunched and red. They probably took about half an hour to get 3 pictures that they really liked. They then put them online, and you can order prints from them. A little pricey for us, but I'm grateful we have this lovely picture.

 

She is beautiful. Of course.