I started having contractions at 3 AM on March 1st, I woke Spencer up at 3:30 to tell him what was going on. The contractions were about 6-8 minutes apart and not too painful, but they started coming every 5 minutes apart soon after. We got up, got dressed, fed the dogs, and Spencer ate some breakfast ( I didn't feel up to it). By 5 AM I had been having contractions 5 minutes apart for about an hour and they were getting really painful so we headed up to the hospital. By the time we got to the hospital the contractions were 3 minutes apart. I got checked in and attached to the monitors. Unfortunately I was only dilated half a centimeter ( which I had been at for about 3 weeks), so I was started on cytotec and pitocin. I was having really painful contractions by this point and the IV medications weren't cutting it. I ended up getting an epidural at 10 AM. I thought I would be free of pain at this point, that was not the case. I was still in a lot of pain for the duration of my labor, I'm not sure why the epidural didn't really work for me. Because I was in so much pain, the nurse anesthetist upped my dose on the epidural, it didn't relieve my pain though and it just made my whole body go numb. So throughout the day they were going up and down on the epidural and eventually turned it off because I was so numb and was having a tough time breathing. I was finally dilated to a 10 around 4:30 PM, but I didn't start pushing til my midwife got there around 6 PM. This hour and a half period was one of the most painful all day. Dominic finally arrived at 6:51 PM. He weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces and was 19 inches long. He was much bigger than I thought he would be! My midwife guessed he would be in the 6-7 pound range.
Spencer and I couldn't be more excited about him being here! We are loving every minute with him, he doesn't cry too much and is a good sleeper.We still can't believe that we are parents though!
Here we are in the hospital when I was in labor
Holding Dominic right after he was born
Spencer holding Dominic for the first time. Proud daddy!
First family photo
Getting ready to go home from the hospital
