Labor and Delivery....

Sorry for the delay, but as promised here is the big story. We went in for an induction on October 1st at 6:00 a.m. They started my IV and petocin(sp??)and broke my water, and we went into labor immediately at that point. I went in to the hospital 3 cm dialated. I went from 3 cm to 6 cm by 9:30 a.m. I had not had an epidural at this point. My nurse kept asking me if I wanted to get one, and I was refusing to get one until she told me I might want an epidural when I start to push. I started thinking at that point well I am at 6 cm, and we will be pushing within the next couple of hours so I said go ahead at this point and administer an epidural. This is when then problems started. The epidural only took in my right side so I felt everything on the left side. The nurse decided to give me a boost in my epidural to see if it would take on the left side, but then it only numbed the right side even more and numbed my arm and hand on the right side. My OB doctor (Dr. McKenzie) came in and said back off the epidural completely because I could not hold my leg with my hand on the right side and when we start to push, we will need to be able to do that. So I was only 8 cm at this point when they took me off the epidural completely which means we only had the epidural for 2 cm. If I could do it all over again, I would have never gotten the epidural because it slowed my labor way down and I was really doing okay feeling everything naturally. Don't get me wrong, it hurt a whole lot, but my mom was helping me breathe through it so it wasn't too bad with her help. She has had 4 natural childbirths. Okay, back to the story, it took me 4 hours to get from 6 cm to 10 cm. Then we got taken off of the epidural completely for the pushing part which I felt every bit of the pain on both sides. Anyway, we finally met our little Hannah at 4:30 p.m. on October 1st. After seeing her sweet little face, I forgot about all the pain I was in. She is such a blessing, and we honestly cannot imagine life without her. And as promised we have posted a some pictures. I have loaded several on facebook so check them out at your convenience.