This is how she got here

I suppose I should record the story of Navy Bean's birth. Well, the day of the 10th I decided that maybe working in the garden would help jump start labor. I think it may have worked because I was in inactive labor the rest of the day. I didn't tell Wes though, because I really didn't want him to freak out about it. And, the contractions weren't getting worse, or closer together. At bedtime, I had just about given up hope that it would happen. And then I noticed that I was feeling a little wet down there, and I had just gone to the bathroom. I smacked Wes and told him to get me a towel, my water had broken. I managed to get to the bathroom without getting anything anywhere and Wes thought I was just "leaking". Except, I went to take a shower and leaked everywhere and I wouldn't stop. This was about 11:35pm. So, we finished packing stuff up, I ate a bowl of cereal and called my mom and Camille and we head to the hospital. By the time we got there, it was about 12:30am.

We head up to labor and delivery and they stuck me in a room and came in twice to see if my water had actually broke. This, despite the fact that I was going through pads like crazy because I was clearly leaking. Finally, they hooked me up to a monitor to make sure the baby was ok (she was), and to see if I was having contractions. I was, but they were erratic and not that painful. Finally, at about 1:30 to 2:00 they moved me to a delivery room. Because my water had broke, they had to induce labor and so started the pitocin. I was only dilated to maybe a 2 at this point. The contractions started coming regularly at this point. Now, I had wanted to have a very active labor, walking around, squatting, that sort of thing. However, if you know anything about me, you know I love to sleep and at this point, I was beyond exhausted. I tried to sleep between contractions (they were still several minutes apart) but just couldn't do it and I was too tired to do anything. I was really afraid that I would be too tired to push when we finally got to that point. Finally, at about 5:00 I decided to get some narcotics, I was also dilated to about a 3. I don't know what they gave me, but they allowed me to sleep, but they didn't do anything to reduce the pain.

Now, the narcotics. They made me hallucinate. I was very upset that the hospital was allowing Dennis the menace to run around because this was not something a kid should see. And then, I was upset because the Russian guy who was supposed to bring me the giant purple mushrooms with white spots, the mushrooms that would make the pain go away, lied to me. The mushrooms did not make the pain go away, they made it worse. And I was upset that the narcotics made the contractions farther apart and I told Wes that. They had to be at least 10 minutes apart, because of the sleep and the hallucinations. Wes looked at me and said "baby, they're 1 minute apart, that's it." So I guess the drugs worked.

At around 7:30am I felt like I needed to push, but the nurse said I would probably only be dilated to 4 or 5. Finally, Wes made her get a doctor to check me. I was dilated to 9. Go drugs!!! And the pushing began soon afterwards. The pushing actually hurt less than the contractions and I felt like I was accomplishing something. The nurse finally said she could see the baby's head and she had a full head of dark hair. I'm pretty sure I told the nurse that wasn't our baby because our baby wouldn't have any hair. I might have even asked her if she was looking at the right vagina. I'll spare you the bloody and disgusting and painful last minutes of labor (including getting my giant placenta out, which ripped out half the stitches they had already done. What idiot decided to do it in that order?). She was born at 9:43 am, weighing in at 7 lbs, 10 oz. and 21 1/2 inches long. She is a very long baby. And she is very beautiful. Which is good, because she's been kind of cranky and can't figure out her days and nights. I'm a little tired.

But, she was totally worth it. Here's some silly pictures of her making faces.

Working on a yawn.

Such munchable cheeks!

I think we're going to keep her. I've become rather attached.

And, as Beth noticed, I'm not giving out her name. You can e-mail me if you would like it.