Here's the story of a lovely baby

Saturday, September 12 I had a baby shower at my aunt's house. My in-laws drove up all the way from Visalia to come to that and to hang out with us for the evening, stay the night and then go to church with us the next day. The shower was great and everyone seemed to enjoy it. My mother-in-law was encouraging me to do squats so that the baby would come sooner. She was hoping so bad that Zoe would come while they were there for the weekend. Little did she, or us, know what was in store for us.

After the baby shower was over, I went to Target with my mom to get some odds and ends things that we still needed for the baby. Odds and ends like a stroller and car seat. After that shopping excursion, I went to the church and met up with Ryan and his parents for our ward's annual chili cook-off. There were all sorts of yummy chilis there - some definitely spicier than others. I was careful not to eat more than a bite of the spicy stuff because of recent heartburn I'd had. The night ended peacefully and we went home and soon thereafter went to bed.

2:30AM - Sunday - I was laying in bed, sleeping, and was woken up by a sudden gush of liquid. I quickly got out of bed knowing I was feeling something I'd never felt before. I told Ryan, "I think it's happening." His response: "What's happening?" Me: "IT is happening." We were 10 days before the due date and I hadn't really gotten the "hospital bag" ready so we spent the next hour getting things together, making some phone calls, opening the stroller/car seat box and getting the car seat set up in the car. I knew they wouldn't let me leave the hospital w/o a proper car seat. We had done a couple practice runs to the hospital, but at (now) 3:30 in the morning, there isn't much traffic to worry about. It took us about 10 minutes to get to the hospital.

As we were getting checked in, I told them that my water had broken. What they asked in return was, "How much water?" Like I have anything to compare it to? It was definitely more than a cup and less than 5 gallons. I was soon admitted and now it became somewhat of a waiting game. With my water having been broken, it shouldn't have been too long before I started having contractions. The contractions weren't coming though. Heck, this ain't so bad, I thought. Oh unwise one - what did I know? Turns out that my water had broken, only not completely. Later Sunday afternoon the nurse broke my water. I didn't know so much water could come out of me! They gave me Pitocin to get the contractions going and it wasn't long before I was really in some pain. Ryan was with me the whole time and was a great coach and support as I tried to breathe and work through my contractions. Family members popped in and out throughout the day. I couldn't believe how lucky Ryan's mom was for me to go into labor while she was there. I'm really glad it worked out that way. She's such a sweet woman and it was a dream come true for her. Ok, so back to the contractions. I worked through them the best I could but had no idea when the end of that would come. I sincerely wanted to have a drug free birth, but my body had other plans. The contractions were getting worse and worse and I kept telling myself that after the next one, I'd get the epidural. Well, I did that about 10 times and had Zoe come in the next hour or so, I might have been able to last. I overhead one of the nurses say that those contractions could last for another 3 hours, who knew? It was when I heard that that I decided to go for the epidural. The contractions were exhausting me and it was getting to be evening time and I needed my rest if I was going to be pushing this baby out anytime soon.

Ahhhhh, epidural. Welcome relief. I was able to get a little bit of rest and around 3:00 on Monday morning, I started pushing. Ryan, my mom and my mother-in-law were all able to stay in the room and help me as I pushed and counted and pushed some more. The pushing wasn't so bad at first, but got harder and harder. At 4:40 our little Zoe came into the world. She was beautiful and perfect, 7 lbs 9 oz and 19 inches long. She has been a joy and a blessing to us already. We're so happy to have our little family!

I'm also happy to report that my ankles are back. =)