On Saturday, May 14th Emma Rose was born at 1:30 pm. Everyone is healthy and happy.
I woke up Friday morning around 1:00 in the morning with contractions. I knew I needed to rest so I tried to fall back to sleep. Unfortunately that didn't happen until four and I woke up again around six. Contractions were random so I didn't know if I was experiencing false labor or real labor. i thankfully had a doctor's appointment scheduled that day at 1:00 pm.
That afternoon my doctor indicated I was close, but no in labor yet. Because I was already three days late he asked if I wanted to be induced, which I declined; however, he did strip my membranes.
Well, after that my contractions started coming hard about an hour later. Andy and I started timing them and at 5:00 pm called the doctor as the contractions were lasting at least one minute and were four minutes apart. We were admitted to the hospital even though I was only 2 1/2 cm dilated.
The next five hours were spent wandering the halls and going into the shower to help with the contraction pain. At 11:00 pm I had only progressed to 3 cm dilated. At that time I decided to get the Epidural despite my original intention. I was at least able to get some sleep as my labor was progressing so slowly. About 12 hours later I was finally dilated to 10 cm. I started pushing but with the Epidural I wasn't pushing correctly. After a while of trying and talking about the possibility of a C-section (the baby's heartbeat went down with every contraction), I asked that they decrease the strength of the Epidural so I could feel the contractions. Thankfully, things progressed quickly after that and Emma was born within a few minutes!
Even though my labor didn't go with the birth plan I had developed for myself, I am still very happy with how it went. At the end I was still able to be an active participant in the birth. My OB/GYN was the doctor on call and was the one who delivered her and all the hospital staff were wonderful.
Beth & Andy, Franklin
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