Thursday, July 31, 2008

a year ago today...

365 days ago I woke up very early with labor pains, and I was thrilled. I was 12 days past my "due date" and was scheduled for an induction in less than 48 hours. I had tried all sorts of home remedies to go into labor naturally, and I even had my first acupuncture experience to try to induce labor (it was so relaxing that I fell asleep!) My mother-in-law had been here for 2 whole weeks from Massachusetts in anticipation and let's just say we were ready. Really ready.
Little did I know that it would over 40 hours later that I would finally get to push my baby out. Our plan to labor at home as long as possible was challenged by one of my body's reactions to intense pain once labor really got going strong: vomiting. Who knew? Assuming that dehydration and fatigue were going to be a problem, we went to the hospital where things felt pretty much completely out of our control. At 4 AM the next morning (roughly 6 hours after being admitted) we were told "get induced or go home" because the IV fluids, etc. had slowed my labor way down. To make a long story a little shorter, we stayed and went through a bunch of interventions, a less-than-ideal epidural ordeal, several extremely tense moments, and ultimately the happiest, most awesome experience of our lives: a baby girl emerged from me and into our lives and hearts forever.
I look forward to doing it all again. :)