Birth : how i lost 20 poouds in 2 days

Some people want to know all that went down with Charlie being born, but I'm not one for telling that entire story, so I'll give some bullet points here:

- Charlie was due on December 18th.  Since we all know that due dates are just guesses, I was hoping that he'd come early.  I was ready and my schedule was cleared after December 6th.

- The day after Charlie's due date I went in and was checked and they told me that it would likely be another week before he arrived.  I didn't believe them because Christmas was right around the corner and I just knew that he'd come before that.  But he didn't.  So Christmas came and went and was pretty weird because everyone had expected him there.  And because I'm bad at having my plans changed.

- The next week I went back (he is now 9 days past due) and I asked to be induced.  At that point I had less than a week left of Travis and Savannah's winter Break - you know, the one I was planning on having all of us home every day for to help with the new baby.  They scheduled the induction for Friday night and called me later to push it back to Saturday morning.  UGH.  God was really teaching me to not make plans.  Every "plan" I had for Charlie's arrival had not come to pass.

- Saturday morning Travis and I checked into the Hotel  Hospital.  The nurses gave us all this paper work, asked a hundred questions, then hooked me up to an IV full of Pitossen. I HATE IVs, and I knew that getting stabbed in the hand would be the worst part of the whole thing.. and it actually kind of was.  They continued to dose me with Pitossen, increasing it every hour or so through out the morning.  It wasn't until about noon that I began to feel contractions at all.

- Once contractions started it was still 3 hours before they were anything to complain about.  Our nurse kept coming and and finding me checking facebook and pinterest and saying "I need you to be more uncomfortable than this!".  So she kept upping my dosage.  One thing is for sure - that boy did not want to come out.  Around 3pm the contractions starting hitting hard and by 4 they were on top of each other - so I asked for them to get me an epidural.  I had planned all along to get one.  I got one with Savannah, but I had foolishly waited until I had been in intense labor for over 12 hours.  I didn't want that again.  So at 4:30 I got the epidural.  About 5 minutes later it was a whole new ball game.  But still not totally numb - so at 5:30 I got another dose of something into my back that made me totally numb.  We started watching Harry Potter on TV because I knew it would help me rest and hopefully nap to get ready for pushing.  Unfortunately, just as I started to doze off (around 7:30pm, the midwife came in and checked me out and said I was ready to push.  I wasn't expecting that at all - it kinda freaked me out.  But they rolled everything in and we went for it.  Travis and the nurses had to totally lift and hold my legs because I could not move or feel a thing from the waste down.  Some people dont like that - and to be honest, I didn't love not feeling ANYTHING - but it has to be better than feeling EVERYTHING.  During the whole pushing process I got really light headed and felt like I was going to pass out.  They put oxygen on me but it didn't really help.  I actually had the thought "Is this it?  I'm I going to get this kid out as the last thing I'll do?" But no - I made it through.

- 8:36pm, Charlie Baylor comes on out.  I was still light headed so I didn't get really into it all right away.  I'm not really like that anyway so I wouldn't have anyway.  They cleaned him up and all that jazz while I directed Travis to take pictures and tried to get my head together.  It's so gross - the whole birthing thing.  And once they had him out, I'm reminded by the midwife "Okay, we just have a few other things to get out of there!" - YAAAAY.  Just what I want to do!

- Savannah met Charlie first, with just us.  She came in and introduced herself.  She was so so so excited.  Then our parents.  We didn't invite many people up this time, which I'm glad for.  Last time we had a revolving door of visitors - that's what we thought we wanted.  This time we had a 2 day, super relaxing, super easy stay.  Travis got a little bored, but that's partly because he was so tired from sleeping in a chair for two nights.  I love Mary Greeley.  The nurses, doctors and other staff were awesome.  We came home around 1pm on Monday and took some time for naps and showers before Savannah came home.  It was good to just settle in a little before little miss got here.

So that's the story.  And here he is!