At Last

We have been planning to start a family since 2008, and at last we met our little rainbow princess!

Our daughter was born at 2:07 am on November 22, weighing in at 8lbs 1oz and 21 inches long.

She was quite content not making her arrival, so at 41 weeks, I was induced. It took 16 hours from start to finish, with contractions every 2 minutes the whole way through. I hardly needed any Pitocin to get my labor to start progressing and was on 1ml/hr for 80% of the time, only ever getting up to 4ml's/hr.

I requested an epidural about 5 hours in so I could rest a little because the contractions were pretty intense, without a lot of breaks between contractions. I had some relief for a few hours, but the epidural ended up failing. I didn't have a specific birth plan, so I was open to both natural delivery and an epidural. I believe being open to both options going into the process, made it easier for me to accept, and move forward with the natural delivery.

I spent 2 hours in transition phase, and 2.5 hours pushing. She nursed within 30 minutes after her birth and has been a champ ever since, with a little help from a lactation consultant. The biggest complication was that I came down with an infection, and fever during the delivery, so we both needed antibiotics.

Our daughter handled the delivery so wonderfully, holding a steady heart rate the entire time. She has been such a calm, content baby so far, we are so in love, and have never been happier!