One year ago today...

It was ironic, really. A "planner" like myself, spending my entire pregnancy "planning" to be surprised by sudden contractions and rushing off to the hospital, instead being handed a date and time when my labor would begin. You'd think I'd be elated! But I wasn't. I so desparetely wanted our daughter to come on her own, when she was good and ready. But since my body wasn't doing anything even resembling labor, we planned to be induced at midnight on Thursday, October 6, 2011—at exactly 41 weeks.

Since I knew I wouldn't be able to eat after being admitted to the hospital Thursday morning, Matt and I headed to Panera for a "Last Supper" of sorts late Wednesday night. We had a quiet dinner together, knowing it would be the last for awhile. After Panera, we headed home, picked up our bags and headed to the hospital just before midnight. 

Being admitted to the hospital was a whirlwind, but I'll never forget the moment we walked into our delivery room. We stepped in and I saw my hospital gown hanging on the bathroom door and a little baby bed against the far left wall. That little bed was where our baby would be weighed, measured, and cleaned up. The gown and the little baby bed made it all sink in and feel so, so real. 

Around 1 a.m. they started me on some medicine to "get the ball rolling." They told me it probably wouldn't start contractions, but boy were they wrong! Within thirty minutes, I started feeling them. Matt was asleep at this point, so I just laid in bed, attempting to read and listen to my iPod. A little while later the nurse came in to check me and I was already between 2-3 cm. My doctor decided to go ahead and start me on Pitocin, and we decided at that point to go ahead and summon the epidural.

The epidural. I must admit, this was the worst part of the labor experience for me. But not for the reason you're imagining. I'm not afraid of needles, so getting the actual epidural was a breeze. But as soon as the anesthesiologist walked out of the room, I felt this odd sensation that my arms were going numb. And within a few more minutes, my neck and mouth felt numb, and then I realized epidural was working its way up past my waist. I panicked. I looked at the nurse and said, "Um, the roof of my mouth is going numb." I saw her eyes widen and without missing a beat she reached over and shut down the machine controlling the epidural. While I was thankful for her speedy reflexes, I asked them to turn the epidural way, way down after that. This ended up being a blessing because for the rest of my labor I could still move my legs pretty easily without feeling the contractions completely. 

The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful. I kept trying to sleep but was totally unsuccessful in that arena so I just tried to "rest" as much as possible. Every once in a while a nurse would come in and adjust the monitor on my belly and check to see if we'd made any progress. I think I'd so prepared myself for the worst case scenerio that I was completely shocked each time we got further along. Around 4 p.m. our doctor came in and announced, "You're ready to go." 

Actually, it went just like this:

Doctor: "You are completely dilated. Are you ready to start pushing?" 

Me: "What? Really? Now? Like, right now?" 

Doctor: "Yes."

Me: "Um...well...I'm STARVING...so...yes. The sooner we have this baby, the sooner I get to eat!"

[Now don't get me wrong, I was dying to meet Norah. But throughout the entire day I'd been craving a Coke and a burger and they'd just kept bringing me ice chips! A girl can only eat so many ice chips.]

So at this point, they started converting the room into "delivery mode." They adjusted my bed, changed the lighting, and our room quickly went from just the two of us to having an extra four nurses running around. I think I began pushing around 4:30 p.m., and I started to get the hang of it pretty quickly in large part because my epidural was so low that I could feel every contraction as it happened. After the first few contractions I started telling the nurses when I was going to push, and they just let me do my thing. After maybe 10-15 minutes of this my nurse says to me, "Okay, I need you to stop pushing now because the baby is coming and the doctor's not here yet. I need you wait until he gets here." 

Wait? You want me to wait? ARE YOU KIDDING?!? I don't know how long our doctor (whom we absolutely love, by the way) actually took to get to our room, but it felt like millenia. 

And then, breaking any and all tension in the room, our doctor slips into the room quietly singing the chorus of "Hey, Soul Sister" by Train. I couldn't help but laugh. He got suited up and we were ready to go. And maybe 20 minutes later, this happened...

And we were in love. Our little Norah Spring. 

What a blessing this little girl has been to us over this past year. Happy birthday, sweet Norah! Your mom and dad couldn't love you more.