Abigail is Here!

Even though I'm just now able to sit down and find time to write after almost 4 weeks, we are happy to announce that our little Abby is here! She was born on April 19th, which just so happens to be her grandpa's (Amy's dad) birthday! What an awesome day to share!
The big event actually started a day earlier, on Monday. Monday morning, as I was getting out of bed, my water broke! I felt a gush of water and ran into the bathroom to make sure I didn't just have an accident! My mind started going a million miles an hour, and was wondering if I should call Chris and tell him to turn around and come home, since he was on his way to work! Once I finished, I stood up and immediately more water came rushing. Yep- it's time to call Chris! As he was on his way home, I ended up finishing up packing our bags and getting ready for the hospital. We arrived to triage around noon, and by one they were getting us ready and sending us off to the delivery room! I was already 5 cm dilated and was having contractions, so the nurse was almost sure we'd have this baby by 7 pm, which happened to be the end of her shift (and her name was Abby, too!). They induced me and started me on Pitocin around 2 pm. After 5 hours, and many contractions later (still no pain yet, though!), I hadn't progressed any further. It was very disappointing that I was still at 5 cm and no progression whatsoever and it was already 7 pm. So the nurse did a check up and noticed that my water hadn't fully broken, and so they thought the doctor may have to come in and break the bag of water. So around 8 we turned out the lights to take a nap, and around 8:30 pm my water bags burst on their own and I thought someone threw a water balloon in my lap while I was sleeping! As soon as the water broke, things progressed quickly, and I was starting to have harder contractions. By 9 I was on an IV med to take the edge off the pain, and by 10:30 I was getting my epidural. The IV meds were great, but only lasted an hour and I wasn't able to get them again for a while, which was NOT going to happen since my contractions were getting so bad. I really wanted to see how long I could tough it out, and I think ended up waiting a bit too long. I started shaking and feeling extremely nauseous and it was so hard to sit still for the epidural. Thankfully it went quickly and in a few minutes I was feeling so much better! I now know that I will never wait that long if I am ever in labor again. No more Mrs. Tough Girl! I will be the Give Me Drugs NOW Girl next time! Once the epidural kicked in, we turned off the lights again and got some shut eye for the next couple of hours. Sadly, in the middle of the night my pain started getting bad again, so I clicked for more drugs, which ended up making my legs go completely numb. Around 2 am they said I was pretty much ready to go, but since I couldn't really feel anything, they decided they didn't want me to start pushing and wasting energy. So they told me to hold off, and we'd try pushing later when they felt the timing was right. Around 5 am is when we started pushing, and two hours later an 8 lb. 5 oz. baby Abigail was born! It was the most incredible experience I've ever had, and it all just went by so quickly. Chris and I both were in tears and Abby was beautiful. God blessed us with a healthy baby girl!