Here's the story...of a lovely lady

This is more for me than anything else. I didn't want to have to write it all out in the journal and typing is so much quicker. This will be long but for anyone who reads this, hope you enjoy!!!

So, I figured I would give my side of story on how little Brooke MacKenzie decided to join our family. Like Troy pointed out, I had my final Dr.'s appts on Tuesday. Not much of a surprise, I had not really progressed. I just assumed that we would be going to the hospital Thursday night to induce. Well, that afternoon I started having cramps. They were pretty mild but somewhat consistent. I continued to feel them through the night and by the next morning around 5 I started timing them. They were coming every 10 minutes or so. We decided to call my doctor and see what we should do. We headed to the office and met with the nurse practitioner. She checked me and said that I had dilated to 2 cm and was mostly effaced. They also decided to stick me on the non-stress test machine just to see how the contractions were going. Every time I felt a contraction, the numbers wouldn't go up at all. That was a little dissappointing and had me scared about what I should expect when I would be in active labor. Everything looked fine with the non-stress test so the nurse practioner told me to come back in the afternoon to check me one more time. In the meantime, she recommended that I do a lot of walking. We walked around the mall for a bit, came home for lunch, then I took my mom to "walk" around some of the model homes around our neighborhood. We headed back to the dr's office around 3 and the nurse practioner checked me. This time she said that I had dilated to 3/4 cm and was 90% effaced. Yay for progress. She spoke with the doctor then gave us 2 options. We could either A)be admitted into the hospital right then and kind of sit and wait it out or B) go home, "relax", and wait it out there. We decided to head home knowing that we had the option to come back later. Well, I started timing my contractions again that afternoon starting around 5-ish and they were very consistent at 10 minutes apart and they were starting to hurt. Everytime I would look at the clock and see that my 10 minutes was coming up I would cringe. Around 8 we decided to walk some more around our block. During that time, my contractions starting come every 5-8 minutes and man, were they painful. At 9 I told Troy that I wasn't sure I would be able to stay home any longer to "relax" so we called the doctor. We proceeded to pack up our things and head to the hospital. We got there around 10:30, made it to the room at 11:00, and was checked by the nurse at 11:30 am. Apparently, I have a magical cervix (tmi...maybe) that can expand and shrink because when she checked me she said that was still at 1 cm!!!!!! That totally blew my mind. Also, the assistant that had hooked me up to the non-stress monitor did not put the thing that measures contractions in the correct spot. No wonder whenever I was feeling a contraction, the numbers didn't change. Anywho, at this point, I'm a little uncomfortable and the nurse asks if I want an epidural. Without hestitation, I say yes. She starts the blood work then tells me that she'll talk with my doctor around midnight to go over things and that she would be back to check me. During this time of waiting, my contractions start coming quicker and stronger. At one point, they were every 2 minutes or one on top of another. It was horrible. All Troy could say was "try to breathe through it." Ha, easier said than done. The doctor finally came around 12:30-ish, checked me and said that I was definitely still at 1 cm. Man was that dissappointing. She said that I had two options. A) take a sleeping pill and try to get some rest of B) get the epidural. Well, that was a no brainer. Life after the epidural was heaven. I didn't get as much rest as Troy did (he was out from 2-6) but I was able to shut my eyes for maybe 1 hour all together. The doctor also gave me a suppository that helped progress my labor. By 2 am I had already dilated to 2 cm. At 6:30, I told the nurse that I was starting to feel some pressure but it wasn't painful. She checked and I was fully dilated. Unfortunately my doctor had to run to the airport so she was gone from 6:30 to 9. I wasn't allowed to move at all because they didn't want my water to break so I just laid there for a good long while while my whole left side got super numb. The doctor came in at 9:30, broke my water at 9:45, and little Brooke made her debut at 10:12. I don't think I've ever been as exhausted as I was after giving birth. At one point I was scrolling through the pics that Troy had taken and I was struggling so much to keep my eyes open. I think you can kind of tell in this pic. All in all, everything went without a hitch and I'm glad that I didn't have to push any longer. The hospital stay was great and the food wasn't that bad. I would definitely recommend sending the baby to the nursery during the night to get some sleep. We didn't do that the first night but the second night we did and I think that was my last night having a really good sleep for a long time. We came home Saturday afternoon to my mom waiting for us on the porch. I think she's excited to be a grandma for the 3rd time. We gave Brooke her first bath yesterday. Surprisingly she did very well and I love how fuzzy her hair. We had Brooke's first doctor's appointment this morning and we couldn't help but get her all gussied up.