The Story

So I was convinced Abby was never coming.  As her due date came and passed, and 4 more days came and passed, I was so upset.  I can't even imagine the number of times I just stopped and shouted, "I can't believe she isn't here yet!"  Nathan was early so going after my due date was a shocker. I tried a few different ways to make her come...ranging from normal (walking, jumping...) to not so fun (if you really want to know what castor oil is like I'll tell you privately- I'm going to try and maintain some dignity here).
On Thursday morning I had an appointment with my doctor and he said he would put me on the schedule to be induced Friday.  While I didn't want to be induced I jumped at the chance to get this girl here. Unfortunately, because it was not "medically necessary" I was only a "medium priority" so it all depended on how much space/how busy the hospital was.  If we didn't make it in on Friday I was going to become a "high priority" on Monday and he said that would guarantee getting in.  The plan was to start calling the hospital at 5:30 am to check availability, then call back every couple of hours till they either said "come on in" or "stop calling- you're not making it today." So we pretended like it was going to happen without really knowing.
After putting Nathan to bed Chris and I went for a long walk (still trying to get this baby to come on her own).  Lots of comments were made about how funny it would be if I finally went into labor now that I was being induced--funny funny. We walked and talked, then Chris painted my toe nails, we ate some ice cream, hung out with my mom, and decided to go to bed. I wasn't feeling great (generally just feeling gross) and my mom said, "didn't this happen right before you went into labor with Nathan?" I couldn't remember so we started to get ready for bed.  Literally about 30 seconds after turning off the lights and getting in bed I had a small contraction.  After my 3rd small one in about 10 minutes I told Chris- "don't quote me, but I think I'm having contractions." We both fell asleep, and about 45 minutes later (12:45) I woke up and started counting the contractions.  They were lasting about 45 seconds to a minute and were about 3-4 minutes apart.  Sweet :) After about an hour I woke up Chris, we showered, got ready to go, called the doctor (I was Group B Strep Positive so I needed 2 doses of medicine for at least 4 hours before the baby was born so the doctor wanted me to avoid laboring at home too much to make sure there was time for the meds).
By the time we got the the hospital it was about 3:30.  And I was dilated to a 5...naturally I asked for the epidural. The nurse kept paging the doctor to get approval and he never called back! I was furious! I was quickly progressing and getting scared that since I was going fast I would never get one.  The pain was becoming increasingly worse and worse, and finally over an hour later the nurse called the doctor's house phone- turns out NONE of the pages had gone through to him- he felt so bad! They then started the GBS medicine and the epidural.

 Note- my epidural with Nathan was perfection.  It took a total of 30 seconds and began working immediately. Unfortunately, this was not the case this time.  It was horrific! For some reason it just wasn't going as smoothly as it should and it HURT!!! I was sobbing and let out a few screams of pain.  Poor Chris had to wait outside and listen to it, then when told he couldn't stand there he started to walk around and heard "Code Blue- Labor and Delivery"...he thought it was me :) By the time it was finally done around 5:00 am I was dilated around 7-8 cm.  My doctor came and told me because the medicine hadn't been started till 4:45 I didn't want to deliver till at least 9:00.  At 7:30 he said I was pretty much ready to go except for my water not breaking yet. So he left for a meeting from 8-9 and told me to just completely relax till he got back.  At 9:40 he came back, and decided it was about time to break my water.  A few minutes later they had everything ready to go and did that- I was 9 1/2 cm dilated...in about 15 seconds I went from a -1 stance to a +2 (medically that means she went from just hanging out to coming out really fast). I felt the urge to push and told them...so they started to hurry and prep the room and get all the people there for the delivery. 
On my 3rd set of pushes she was here- it was absolutely amazing. My epidural was wearing off when I was pushing so I felt it more than I would have liked to but she really came so easily I can't complain. She was put in my arms and I felt a rush of love for this little girl.

 With Nathan I was way emotional and was totally crying when I first held him.  With Abby it was different- I don't think I had a single tear- I just kept talking to her and smiling at her. She just made me so immediately happy.  She came so fast she didn't even had a oddly shaped head or anything. She was perfect.

 We had about 45 minutes with her before she was taken to the Newborn Nursery to be cleaned and checked.  My mom brought Nathan over (I love living so close to the hospital!) and he met his little sister and was so precious with her. It felt so wonderful to be together as a family for the first time.

 Chris followed Abby to the nursery and I went to my hospital room while my mom took Nathan to Texas Children's for a procedure (more on that to come later...thankfully she was here to help with that!). They were really fast with Abby and she was back in my arms in no time at all.  She was super healthy and took really well to eating.  It was such a relief to know that everything was good with her. After Nathan was done with his stuff and took a nap my mom brought him back again.  Since we hadn't picked Abby's name out ahead of time we had never prepped Nathan on her name, but when he walked in the room he saw her and said "ABBY!" I'm so excited for them to be friends.

 

 The first night was great.  She is a great sleeper and only ate twice that night, and the same the second night.  Wonderful! I am all for babies sleeping though the night! We had the option of going home Saturday but because of the GBS we decided to stay till Sunday just to be safe.  Sunday morning we quickly got everything together, got all the discharge papers and were out of the hospital around 11.  It was fun to finally come home.  Unfortunately Nathan was a little terror- I think he was a little mad at me for being gone- and we found out on Tuesday that he had a raging ear infection...poor kid- what a tough weekend for him!
We have loved our new addition to our family- we are definitely more complete.  She is a precious girl and we are thrilled to have her in our family.