Kate is here!

It appears that my letter to Kate at 39 weeks worked because I went into labor the very next day! Here is my birth story:

On Saturday night, about 11:00, K and I were watching a scary movie (I don't like scary movies) and I started to get a couple sporadic contractions. I tried to time them, but they were really in no pattern and not very strong. I went to sleep and during the night I woke up about 8-10 times with really uncomfortable cramps in my ute and back. I was half asleep and didn't realize they were contractions until I woke up at 7:00 in the morning with bloody show. I woke K up and said, "Do you feel like meeting your daughter today?" As always, K was very enthusiastic and said "Why?" :)

I wasn't completely sure that I was in labor, it wasn't until 9:00 that the cramps and back pain started to become timeable and they were about 8-10 minutes apart. I still wasn't 100% sure this was it, but I went into a little bit of a panic mode and began frantically cleaning the house. I did the dishes, vacuumed all the carpets, put things away... basically did all the nesting that I hadn't been doing previously.

The contractions started to get closer together, but it wasn't until about 1:00 that they really started to get painful and close together. By 2:00 I was having to sit and breathe through them and they were about 4 minutes apart. Since we're 40 minutes from the hospital we decided to head out...you know, just to get it checked out. We still weren't convinced I was going to have a baby. When we got to the hospital we even left all the bags in the car because we didn't want to look silly going in with them for false labor.

We got to the hospital around 3:00 and they hooked me up to the monitors and saw that I was contracting ever 2-3 minutes. They checked me and I was 3 cm. Woohoo! This was it. We called our parents and told them to head down. I was getting very uncomfortable at this point and was breathing/moaning through the contractions and asking how long it would be before I could get some pain relief. They got me going on saline and gave me a shot of pain meds that took the edge off a little and made me feel drunk. I really enjoyed that drunk feeling, it made labor seem like a party. :)

Around 4:00 they checked me again and I was 4 cm. I was progressing right along. At 4:30 I got my epidural and was instantly feeling great. The epi was a piece of cake to get and I'm so glad I did. From that point until about 10:00 I labored, laughed, and waited with our families to get to 10 cm.

I progressed at exactly a cm an hour, so at 10:00 I was pretty much complete. The doctor had been called an hour earlier and still hadn't arrived. When she did get there, she had to do a c-section on another lady, so I was stuck waiting. While I was waiting, at around 11:00, my epi wore off. I started feeling the contractions again. The doctor arrived in my room at 12:20 and broke my water. They had me start pushing right away and at 1:03 am on July 6th little miss Kate arrived! I had a 1st degree tear, which took 2 stitches to fix. Not bad.

Kate weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and was 21 1/4 inches. Long like her mama and daddy. :)

Recovery has gone well so far. I'm a little sore, but not bad. Kate has been such a wonderful baby. I never understood the "instant love" people talk about when having kids until she arrived. I cannot imagine life without her and she has only been in mine for 3 days. Here are some pictures of my little darling:

And because I promised some people, here is a post-partum belly pic. This is comparing 39 weeks to 3 days pp. What 6 days will do!

Overall my labor and delivery was a lot easier than I expected it to be. I am so amazed by my daughter and love her to pieces!!!

We now begin this fantastic journey as a family of three!