THE BROWNS: Welcome Hope Eliana Brown!!

Where do I begin! As you can imagine the past 5 and a half plus weeks has been whirlwind and a bit of blur.. Thankfully, I have made notes along the way.

Well, labor began on New Years afternoon really. I started having some contractions about 20 minutes apart after 3 pm. They slowly got closer together over the course of the night until I woke Adam up about 4am and told him it was time to get ready and go to the hospital!! They were at about 8 minutes apart and had definitely gotten stronger. (The doctors want you to wait till they are about 5-7 minutes apart). Some were coming every 5 minutes, so we got to the hospital after 5 am. After being plugged up to the monitor, as you can imagine, it seems they slowed a bit. :) But they, could still see some every 8 minutes apart and it took a while for the doctor to get there, it was after 8 and I was dilated to a 4-5. When the doctor checked me I was dilated to a good 5cm. Dr. Thaxton stated she would keep me, and wanted to deliver my baby so she apparently wanted to speed things up a bit, so she had them give me a little Pitocin AND she broke me water. After that, the nurse got my IV and Pitocin going but the anesthesiologist was slow to get in there and do my Epidural (it seemed), and by the time he put it in, I was in pain. WAY more than with Grace. ALSO, I have to say it was the worst Epidural!! He had difficulty getting it in and poked and proded for a while in the midst of all my contractions. It was horrible. Finally got it and got some relief but actually called the nurse in soon after to say I could still feel my contractions and they were really painful and she checked me not long after putting the catheter in me and I was dilated to a 10!!! WHOA!!!!! I went from a 5 to 10 in NO TIME! So, instead of getting more med, it was time to start pushing!!!!

This was a surprise, and my shift automatically went from my own uncomfortableness to the realness that I was about to deliver. (I gives me chills to think about). With that came some anxiety, I was praying that Hope was going to be all right and that there would not be any problems with her as I delivered. THAT was ALL I was concerned about at this point. I remember shaking. Those 9 + months were about to come to a head... It is a overwhelming feeling, met with excitement!