Finn's Arrival-Part 2-The Birth

At 11:30pm, the doctor came in to break my water. The hope was this would really jump start things and boy did it! There was lots and lots of water and my stomach immediately looked smaller.

The doctor suggested I walked around a bit to help Finn drop down. I made it one lap around the hallway, before the contractions got so strong I couldn't walk or talk anymore. At 12:30am, I asked for my epidural. It took about 15 minutes for the anatheiologist to get there and get started. By then I was having really strong contractions and really glad I asked for the epidural when I did!

Things got a little crazy for a few minutes. The anatheiologist was working on the epidural in my back, I had 3 RN's trying to get Finn back on the monitor, and then my BP started dropping so I had another RN giving me oxygen and taking my BP. The anatheiologist said it would take 10-15 minutes for the epidural to kick in, but after 15 minutes I still wasn't getting any relief. One of my biggest fears was having the epidural not work, so I started to panic a bit. But he bumped up the dose a bit and then it kicked in.

Once the epidural kicked in, I was a happy camper. I was so excited to know that Finn was going to be here soon and so ready to meet him. They had me rest for a bit and then at 2am, I started pushing. I pushed for about an hour but then my contractions started spacing out. They bumped up the Pitocin and had me rest again, until the contractions were closer together.

At around 4:30am, the doctor came in to see how things were progressing. One practice push and she was calling everyone for delivery!

At 5:03am on August 10th, Finnegan Orion entered the world. He weighed 8lbs and was 20 inches long. Sean and I were immediately in love with him and in awe of this little person we had brought into the world.

Finn's Arrival-Part 1-The Induction

After going 2 full weeks past my due date, we finally headed to the hospital on Friday, August 7th for my induction. I thought for sure he was coming that day. Boy was I wrong. Here I am on Friday. Still in good spirits and texting updates to family and friends.

I was on a Pitocin IV pretty much all day to help induce labor, but by the end of the day very little had happened. I was having contractions, but they weren't doing anything. They turned off my IV overnight and decided we would re-group in the morning.

On Saturday, my doctor decided to try an oral medication that helps induce labor. I took this medicine every 4 hours throughout the day. I was still hooked up to the IV because they had such a hard time getting it in, we didn't want to lose the line. So we were pretty much stuck in the hospital room all day. Sean and I watched a bunch of movies (thumbs up to Gran Torino, thumbs down to Synecdoche, New York) and napped (Sean was loving his "vacation" from work!) My mom and sister came to visit and we paced the hallways for a bit. But by the end of the day, still nothing was happening.

Sunday, my doctor came in around 9am to discuss our options. I loved that she asked first about my emotional well-being and then about my physical well-being. I was getting frustrated at the lack of progress and ready to meet my little boy! She offered me a c-section, but we declined. Although I was ready to be done, I didn't want to have a c-section unless absolutely necessary. She gave us a pass to leave the hospital for a few hours, so Sean and I ran home for some clean clothes and then out to breakfast. I started back on the Pitocin IV around 3pm and the plan was to have the doctor break my water when the contractions started getting regular and stronger.

Finally at 11:30pm, I was having regular, strong contractions and ready to have the doctor break my water.