Waiting and waiting and waiting

Gavin may have come a week early but he sure did make us wait!

I mean wait and wait and wait! It's amazing how slowly time goes when your waiting on a sweet little baby! Suddenly the clock is your best friend. Suddenly your counting hours, minutes, and seconds! Contractions started around 11:00 am Sunday morning but were nothing serious. By 2:00 they were coming every 2-3 minutes and lasting for a minute. After timing them until 4:00pm I called Dr. Tahtawi and she told us to go to the hospital. We called Tammy to come watch Owen and got our stuff together for the hospital. So excited, So nervous, so ready to meet sweet baby Gavin.

Time check- Sunday 6:30 Pm

The nurse says that my water has broken and I am 2 cm dilated.... We spent many many hours watching this monitor. Watching contractions.... Watching Gavin's heart rate.... hoping and praying that there would be no decels this time!

His heart rate held steady through the entire labor!

Never one moments worry!

We watched my contractions go up and down. Time Check- 7:30 pm Still no baby! I'm still happily passing time watching TV and reading my US Weekly in between the contractions. The doctor doesn't check my progress until midnight. To my dismay I am still 2 cm dilated. I've now been in Active labor since 4:00pm and the doctor wants me to save my strength so she orders an epidural. I had no idea how much pain I was feeling until that sweet man came and took it all away. What a relief! By the time the anesthesiologist got there it was 2:30am and Dr. Tahatwi was going to check in again at 5. No sleep... No food... all we could do was wait! Crossing our fingers at 5:00am there would be progress. Time Check- 11:10 am Sunday May 17th. Still no progress at 5:00 am. No progress at all!!! I was still only 2cm dilated and the Nurse started throwing around the "c" word. She thought Dr. Tahatwi would want to do a c-section in the morning. I tried hard to think positive even though those words were truly devastating to me. To my surprise Dr. Tahtwhi started a pitocin drip to get things moving. Time Check: 1:45 pm May 17th

The pitocin is working and my Nurse Peggy is adjusting the doses. I'm loving my epidural even more at this point except the fact that not only can I not feel my left leg but my legs, hands, and feet are sooooooo swollen!! I have been pumped with fluid for hours at this point!! I'm also hiding the fact that I'm eating peanut butter crackers in between the nurse coming in and out! I'm starving by this point.

Time Check- 2:20 pm May 17th

Progress!!!! This time when they checked I was 5 cm. Not much progress but progress! The nurse also noticed that my water had not broken! WHAT? About 15 mins later Dr. Tahtawi came to break my water...the water that was supposed to have broken on Sunday night!!! She assured me that things would speed up now! Boy oh Boy she was right!! Too bad no one noticed that my water hadn't broken on Sunday.... baby Gavin should have been here hours ago!

Time Check- 5:15 pm May 17th

Baby Gavin is 6 minutes old!

After 30 hrs of labor

2hrs of pushing

Baby Gavin was finally here! I did it!!!! I had the VBAC I had been planning for the last 2 years! It was an amazing experience that I would do over and over again!! I was truly overwhelmed by seeing our son come into this world. I'm so glad that I gave my body a chance to do what it was meant to do! Through all the pain and all the waiting it was all worth it to hear his first little cry, to see his tiny face, to share that moment with James.... just as I had imagined!