Birth Update...FINALLY

::Whew::

Being a new mom is tiring, exciting, wonderful, overwhelming...and everything in between! It's awesome! :) As my perfect little one is napping, I will attempt to share her birth story! Bare with me...

It all started when my doctors office called me on Monday, the 25th to see if I could come in that Tuesday instead of Thursday. I had made so much progress (going from 1 cm. to 3cm in less than 5 days) they didn't want to wait until the original appt. So, in we went on Tuesday the 26th. Everything was going well, I was feeling good (as good as you can be at almost 39 weeks), wasn't having any swelling....and BAM! The nurse checked my blood pressure and it was 140/100. NEVER have I EVER had problems with my BP, so that was weird. My midwife let me chill for a few minutes to see if that would bring it down. (Afterall I was a little anxious because I wanted to see if/how much I had progressed!) She came back and checked again, nope. She explained that if she told the doctor, the doctor would send me to the hospital ASAP...and I didn't want to go just yet, so she let me go walk out to the car and hang around for about 20 mintues and come back. Well, we came back and STILL no change. It was official, we were going to have a baby within the next 24 hours!!! We stopped at home to eat dinner and get comfy and off we went to the hospital!

We got to the hospital just short of 8:00 pm. By the time I got settled into my room it was around 9:00 pm. At 9:30 the doctor came in and checked me and I was 4-5 cm dialated, so she went ahead and broke my water. Now, at this point, I was having no pain...weirdly enough, none! After she broke my water, the pain started about 15 minutes after that. I suffered for about an hour....and let me tell you....I was in some serious pain!! I kept asking for the epidural and for the nurse to hurry because I was NOT about to suffer through worse, lol. After I got the epidural, it was all good! At about 2:00 am my doctor came in to check me before going to see another patient, and low and behold, I was ready to push!!! After some pretty effortless pushing (epidurals are wonderful, have I mentioned that??), our beautiful Peyton Nicole entered the world. It was the most awesome experiance Austin and I have ever been through, simply amazing.

Over the past two and a half weeks, we've just been trying to adjust to life with a newborn. I knew it would be challenging, but I just don't think anything can prepare you for the real thing! Luckily, Peyton sleeps really well at night. Sleeping for about 4 hours the first round, and three hours the second. I can't complain about that...a few hours in a row is plenty for me! :) She has been pretty fussy, but with each day that passes it seems to lessen. Pray that continues! I did have a breast infection, yuck, so the medication I was on didn't help her tummy either. After trying several pacifiers, we finally found one she likes, well tolerates. That's been a BIG help! She is just the most beautiful little thing we've ever seen. Austin and I just love to stare at her. (We're not partial...) When she gets older, she's going to think we're weird ;)

I'm going to try to be better about posting little updates or pictures a few times each week so that all of you can enjoy her cuteness as much as we do :)

Thank you for all of your prayers, and please continue to pray for our little family! :)