Georgia is here!!!

Okay, so a week and a half later...and I finally remembered that I have a blog! :)

After all of that stuff leading up to her birth, really all it took was someone telling her she COULDN'T be born last weekend, and boom...there she was, insisting on it! Apparently the doctor on call from my ob practice requested no inductions last weekend because she had a big charity function to attend. Well, Saturday afternoon Georgia decided to kick things into gear anyway.

I got a big, huge contraction out of the blue, enough to double me over on the bed and use some breathing to get through it. I told Chris that it was DEFINITELY a real contraction and that I thought this was the day. We kept our eye on the contrax and for the most part they were 8-10 min. apart for the better part of 2 hours. When we called the ob to tell her that, she was hesitant to let us wait for my father in law at the house because she said you just never know how quick these 2nd babies want to come out. It ended up being fine. He arrived like 15 minutes later and we were on our way.

We got to the hospital around 5, and by the time we got checked in, up to the L & D floor, settled in, paperwork filled out, etc. they checked me and I was at 5 cm and totally thinned out. I about did a happy dance!! I told them that my plan was to hang out and walk around as long as I could before getting my epidural because I didn't want to be stuck in bed the whole time. They were fully supportive of that and we were on our way. Unfortunately, it was all back labor again. That pretty much stunk, but you take what is given to you, right? I actually felt good about just breathing through them and doing this little hula hoop swishy circle thing my nurse showed me. My AMAZING coach and hubby did a great job of helping me through them and we had a good laugh at him hula hooping along with me for awhile. They started getting stronger and I had Chris push really hard on my lower back to get me through them for the middle-last part of the time.

Oh, I should add that since my doctor was at the charity function, she had another doctor covering for her. Not a doctor from my practice, but someone entirely different. Never heard of her, never met her, knew nothing about her. I do know that if our doctors trust her, then I have good reason to trust her, so I tried to go with that, even though I was pretty nervous about it. She came to see me and the plan was to get my epidural at 9, then break my water and go from there.

Well, at about 8:30 I got a KILLER contraction and I looked at Chris and said "Okay, this is getting stupid now" and we decided to just go ahead and get the epidural at that point. So, about 15 minutes later we got that going. Ironically, even though I lost the pain, the hour or so after getting my epi was the absolute WORST part of my labor. I got the shakes like CRAZY, my blood pressure dropped a bit and I was TOTALLY nauseated. I just felt really scared...our AWESOME nurse (Danny was his name) told me that it was partially because I'd been in total control of everything for so long and now I didn't have that control. Makes sense, huh? Anyway, we cleared out my family (mom, dad, brother, sister in law) to the waiting room and just tried to concentrate on resting, breathing and calming down. Worked pretty well.

I stalled out at about an 8, but you know, that may have just been Miss Georgia biding her time until my doctor was done with her dinner engagement. She got to the hospital around 10, checked me and had them start pitocin. An hour later and we were good to go. I pushed for about 20 minutes and everything was over. She came out and was good and healthy from the start.

I cried when she cried and just couldn't believe how fast it all went. She weighed 8 lbs, 1 oz and was 20 inches long. She has black hair, just sort of peach fuzzy on top and then quite a bit in the back. She's gorgeous and sweet and we are SOOOO beyond blessed to have her in our family.

I was right...we didn't know we were missing her here until she showed up. It's like she's always been here. Mitchell loves her and Chris and I are completely smitten. It's crazy that you'd choose to return to these sleepless, worrisome nights, but every time we hold her and look at her, there's no question that she was meant to be from the start. She's a little miracle and my heart is full with love and appreciation for the gift of her life with ours.