a baby is born!

october 27 was my 38 week check up with my obgyn. mom had stayed in town from the weekend because we thought i might go into labor any day and she wanted to go to my dr appt with me to see how i was progressing. turns out i was already 4 cm dialated and about 60% effaced. so of course we got really excited and wondered if i was possibly going to have an october baby.

the next couple of days i was frantically working because i had a few projects that i promised my clients i would get done before my due date. i thought i would have a few weeks to get all of it done, but now it looked like it could be any day or it could even still be a few weeks away. mom stayed in town for obvious reasons (thank goodness!) and we decided to try to get things moving along a little quicker so we could have an october baby! i was having pretty consistent contractions, but they weren't getting any stronger yet. on wednesday we did some shopping and my contractions started to progress. on thursday we went downtown to river street to walk. we ended up walking for 3.5 hours! i actually felt pretty good and my contractions were getting a little stronger. when we got home they really started picking up and getting stronger. by about 9 or 10pm i was starting to feel more pain and the contractions were averaging at about 5-6 minutes apart. (figures that i would go into labor while the yankees were playing in the world series)















by 11:30 we decided to call the doctor to see if we should go to the hospital. we were concerned that if i really was in labor (which we pretty much knew i was), then i would be up all night and we were worried about my sleep deprivation. the dr said to go ahead and go to the hospital… YAY!

after taking a shower and getting our things together, we got to the hospital at midnight and i was admitted. (notice the 'not so thrilled' look on my face as lucie was taking pictures of me during contractions!)

































as you can see here, the contractions got MUCH worse as time progressed. i'm not sure what time this picture was taken, but i can tell you that i wasn't a happy camper.















at about 4am i got up to go to the bathroom and walk around a little bit to get things going a little faster. i was leaning on the bed during a pretty strong contraction and all of the sudden my water broke. about 5 seconds later i had an incredibly intense contraction that words can't even explain! now, during this whole pregnancy i was wanting to go natural with no meds during my labor, but after my water broke and my contractions REALLY kicked in, i quickly realized that i wasn't as strong as i thought i could be and requested… no… demanded an epidural. in a matter of minutes the greatest and quickest anesthesiologist came to my rescue and gave me an epidural in less than 2 minutes. no joke… he was awesome! soon after that i felt halfway human again. :)

skip ahead 3.5 hours… the nurse came to check me and i was 10 cm! she was shocked at how fast i had progressed and said the head was right there and i was ready to start pushing ASAP! so fast that dr stone barely got there in time! i was told that i pushed about 8 times (thank goodness!) and then i heard, "IT'S A GIRL!!" Holy cow… i was a mom!

























































































my fantastic doctor, dr stone and 'bubbles'… that's what she nicknamed her:


















































so, there she was. we had a baby girl who we call Amelie Faith! born october 30, 2009, 7:46am, 6lbs 9oz, 19in long. she is so precious and we couldn't love her more. her journey began rough (more on that in the next blog), but she is stronger and more beautiful than ever!