She's Finally Here!!!

I started to have contractions on Sunday, January 18th...Alivia's due date. It was 6:00 p.m. and I started having back contractions about every 5-6 minutes apart. Aaron went on to Youth group at the church and called me every 30 minutes to check on me. I assured him that this could go on for hours and that I would be fine. Finally at 9:00 p.m. I took a long hot shower in hopes that it would tell me if I was having true labor or not. In my mind I knew it was, but in the back of my head I thought, "what if this is all fake and I go to the hospital and they laugh me all the way home?" Well, I got out of the shower and soon learned that this was not fake, my contractions were now stronger and 3-4 minutes apart. Since it was back labor, I had Aaron pushing on my lower back with each contraction and it was black and blue by the time this all ended! Boy was he the best labor coach in the world! I am so blessed to have this man in my life!

Aaron finally convinced me at 1:00 a.m. to call the doctor and see if I should go in. Dr. Martin told me to get my bags and go to the hospital. I finished up some last minute things and we headed to the hospital.

We arrived there at 1:45 a.m. and before they could admit me in the hopsital, they had to check to see how far I was dilated and then if I didn't progress after 2 hours then they would send me home. That night they had 5 girls arrive before me and they had sent them all home and I was now the 6th girl. I was not about to let them send me home! At 4:00 a.m. they checked me once more and sure enough I had dilated to a 3 at this point. They went ahead and admitted me then. I knew at that point I wanted drugs. I thought I would see how far I would get before I asked for some, but who was I kidding? I knew that there was a thing called an epidural and I wanted to be on that bandwaggon now!

Once I was admitted they tried to put an IV in me so that they could give me an epidural later on. They had some complications and it took 6 tries and 2 nurses to finally get one in. Boy was I relieved! The King of the hospital (a.k.a. The Anesthesiologist) finally arrived at 9:45 a.m. and gave me the relief that I was looking for! They checked me right after that and I had dilated to a 5 so they went ahead and broke my water and gave me potossin. After 2 hours they checked me again and I dilated to a 10! We all couldn't believe it! The next shocker was that she was so low that I could start pushing even if I didn't have the pressure to push. After 3 contractions and 10 minutes later, our little angel arrived at 2:10 p.m. It was a moment filled with awe and amazement of how you can fill with so much love for someone that you just met and for Aaron, it was love at first sight. He now knew what love I had for her in my body.

That night about 9:30 p.m. I started to hemorrhage. This was by far the scariest thing that I had to go through in my entire life! I literally didn't know if I was going to die or not. I felt completely helpless, as did Aaron, and without getting answers from the nurses right away, I screamed and bawled the entire time they kneaded on my stomach. They put me on 2 bags of potossin and needless to say, my night of recovery was not fun at all. Praise God that I started to get better the next morning. Thankfully I didn't need blood, but my blood pressure did sky-rocket and they had to watch me all throughout the day and night.

Now we are home and we are truly blessed with this miracle that God has given to us. I can't believe that he actually loves us more than we love our own children! How is that possible?!? It is and for that I am learning how amazing all of this is!