My second daughter, Emmaline...

Well, it is later than promised, but here is my labor/delivery post about Emmaline...

I had been walking around big as a house with a scheduled induction date of April 20th. My husband was scheduled to be here on the 15th, so it was perfect timing. However, timing doesn't always work in your favor during pregnancy.

I had been having all kinds of contractions for days, just not consistently. On Easter Saturday night/ Sunday morning, i began contracting painfully every five minutes, so I made a call to the midwife to decide what to do. I went to the hospital at around 2am, and stayed until 8am when they sent me home telling me I was 4 cm dilated and still contracting. I didn't understand why they were sending me home. I got back to the house and tried my best to get some rest, but went back to the hospital at 3pm. This time I was dilated to 5cm, still contracting every 4 to 5 minutes and they sent me home at around 1am yet again. I was so exhausted, missing my Sadie, and just beside myself that I was an emotional wreck. I went back to my parents house that night. The next day I went to my inlaws to get Sadie and spent the rest of the evening at home. My husband was able to get early leave and got to the house late Monday night. I woke up at 5am Tuesday morning with painful contractions again. I woke Jordan up to start timing them. I called the midwife's office as soon as their office opened to see if I could come in and get checked. I was so upset by my previous weekend that I was not going back to that hospital unless I left with a baby...

We went into the office at 11am, and I was 7cm dilated. They sent me to the hospital to have a baby... FINALLY! I got to the hospital and had a really sweet nurse. Then the epidural lady came and I was a happy camper. I got the epidural and was starting to feel a little tingly, but not numb. I was getting worried, because I never really got numb at all. Then I realized after about 30 minutes that I was not numb a all, something was not working. They called the epidural lady back in and I am screaming by this point because I can feel EVERYTHING! As the epidural lady is trying to inject medicine into the line, the midwife checked me and said I needed to push, to which I replied, "I can't... It hurts too much!" However, by this point I had limited options. I could wait for more epidural medicine to kick in and deal with the pain of the contractions until it started working, or I could deal with the pain of pushing and try to get it over with.

Well, I must be able to push like a pro. Little baby Emmaline came out in ONE push! I didn't believe everyone when they told me she was out. It happened so fast relative to being dilated and having contractions for three days prior. I once again had no cutting or tearing, and was able to go home just 24 hours later. Here are our first photos, and I will be sure to keep my blog more updated from now on!