Welcome to the World!!!

Charlotte Ruth Beach was born on May 6, 2010 at 9:14 am. She weighed 8 lbs 9 ozs and measured at 21 inches long.

The story

Matt and I went in at 12:00 on Thursday morning for a scheduled induction. They started the pitocen at 1:30am and let me be while the pitocen kicked in. Of course I didn't actually get hardly any sleep... At about 5am I woke up needing to go to the bathroom and realized that my water had broken!!! Boy was that an odd feeling. Remembering from Emmaline's birth, I assumed I had about 4 hours before she was actually born. I was right. At this point the nurse, Lynette, asked me if I'd like to consider an epidural but because of my previous experience being not-so-pleasant, I decided to wait longer. I said the same at 7am and then again at 8am. Well, when checked at 8am I was already 6-7 cm and the nurse explained that the transition stage (hardest part of labor) was next. I decided to tough it out since I'd already gone so far without the epidural (or any other pain medication actually). About 8:45 the doctor called to say she was about 10 minutes away. Well, that was just dandy because as soon as I was told that I started feeling the need to push. And that wasn't pleasant. The doctor slid in the door just before 9:00, checked me and told me that it was time to start pushing immediately. Wahoo! But I was hurting so bad I almost couldn't even push. Turns out I could because once the doctor got me focused she was out in 3 contractions. Man oh man, I was so glad to have the pain over with! My natural reaction to so much pain is to shake- a ton. It made the stitching up sort of interesting as I jumped every time the doctor touched me. And I didn't feel competent to hold Lottie until I was all cleaned up and done shaking. But in the end, I was so glad I didn't go through the epidural. I've already been asked a few times if I'll do it next time without an epidural and honestly, I don't know. It sure was nice to have such little pain during Emmaline's birth. But at the same time, it was nice to be able to be up and moving and ready to go home after only 24 hours after the baby's birth. So, we'll see. I'll post pictures after I get everything off the cameras. But I promise you it'll be worth the wait. As you can already see, Lottie is completely adorable and totally worth the wait!