Eden's birth

What a strange and surprisingly calm day it was! Literally, until about 30 minutes before she made an appearance, I wasn't convinced she was coming.
Around 9 am I called my dr's office. They were closed. That was really weird. Usually they're open by 8. I think I waited another hour and called again, I had to leave a message for the paging system. Turns out, they were in meetings which is why the phones were off. Anyways, I had some bleeding the night before and that morning and so I just wanted to chat with them and make sure it was ok. The nurse told me I needed to head to the hospital to Labor & Delivery to determine if I was in labor.
 I am thinking, no, I'm not in labor, if I was I think I would know! So I argued with her a bit, saying my husband was at work and I had my 2 year old son at home.
Bottom line: not convenient to go to the hospital right then. But she kept insisting. So I called Andrew and thankfully he was able to come home to be with Graham.
I thought maybe I was having an occasional contraction, but nothing more than I'd been having for the last 2 weeks or so. So, since the hospital is only 4 blocks from our house and parking is more trouble than it's worth, I decided to walk over. The worst part is that it was 8 degrees - brrrrrrrr!!
They hooked me up to a machine to monitor contractions for about an hour.
*Side note - the nurse on the phone had actually told me to just go ahead and bring Graham with me. This had to be the worst advice of the day! What did she possibly think he was going to do during the 2 hours I was being monitored - sit quietly in a chair?!!! Thankful I did not take that advice. *
So after an hour they came back in and determined that I was having occasional contrax, about every 10 minutes. The dr. then checked me and determined I was 5+ cm dialated and it was at that point that they told me, yeah, you're not going home. Really? I still wasn't convinced this was happening! They said they would take me to a labor room and the dr. would break my water and hopefully things would pick up. So suddenly I was thinking, ummm, I need to call my husband and get him here! We were able to contact Becky Valentine who quickly came to watch G - bless her! And then Andrew arrived. I knew I was having contrax now, but it was so strange because they honestly weren't that painful. Everyone kept saying that I must have a very high pain tolerance, but I am telling you - I don't. :)
Another hour or so and I was dialated 7-8 cm. They asked me if I wanted an epidural because this was my only chance. That was a dilemma I didn't anticipate. Since I didn't feel that much pain I felt like maybe I shouldn't, but because you never know how these things will play out, I didn't want to risk a horrible ending. So I ended up getting one. About an hour later is when I finally felt like contrax. were 5 minutes or less apart. I finally started to think that yes, this baby was going to come! Thank the Lord I wasn't at home waiting for them to be 5 minutes apart, because by the time I felt this, she arrived less than 30 minutes later!!
The dr. asked if I wanted to push. I said I didn't really feel like I needed to, but she said we could do a practice push at least. So as we did, they suddenly all sprang into action and said this baby is coming! And a few pushes later she arrived in all her beautiful perfect babyness.
The differences in the 2 births was just crazy. Graham's was just such a difficult experience and this was so calm and pleasant. I just could not be more thankful! I think I mentioned before that I was most dreading the recovery period more than anything. With Graham it was literally 4-6 months before I was pain-free. With Eden I pretty much felt recovered in about 2 weeks. I honestly didn't even know this possible!
I said all along that after a 10 lb'er, other babies should basically walk out on their own....and well, she practically did. :)

Happy 3 weeks to our sweet, sweet girl!