Today is the day....

May 14, 2013, my life as I knew it had changed forever. I had been in the hospital for two days already and that morning when the doctor came into my room, she promised me that I would be having a baby that day. She was right! I had started being induced two days prior on Sunday evening. As the morning went on, my contractions were getting stronger and very close together, however, there was one problem, I was not dilating. When the doctor came in around eight o'clock that morning, she checked my cervix and it was still only dilated to a one even with all of my contractions, so she decided to break my water in hopes to get things moving. The nurse, Wendy, came in later on in the morning after looking through all of my fetal monitoring strips and decided to check me again. No change. I was so disappointed. It got to be around noon and lunch time at the office, so the doctor stopped in to check me again, no change. Once again, disappointment. I was starting to be in quite a bit of pain from all of the contractions so Wendy called to see if I could have anything to relax me. She came back in to let me know that the doctor agreed to let me have my epidural. After waiting for what seemed like forever, the anesthesiologist came in to begin the process. Finally, after about fifteen minutes, the procedure was over and I was told I should start to feel some relief. And, I did. Wendy decided that maybe she should check me again just to be sure nothing had changed. Well, it had. Finally, I was dilated to a seven just from being able to relax a little bit. It was time to start pushing. I was instructed to push a long, hard push with every contraction. After two pushes, Wendy went out to call the doctor to let her know that delivery was just around the corner. She came back in just in time for another contraction. With that push, her head was visible! Five pushes later and at two o'clock exactly, my beautiful baby girl, Maci Sue, was born!