Pictures and birth story...

Here are the details for all those interested:

I woke up Tuesday morning at around 4 AM in pain and went into the nursery so I wouldn't disturb Casey's sleep.  After about 20 minutes of what I thought were just really painful Braxton-Hicks contractions, I decided to start timing the contractions and discovered they were about a minute long and 8 minutes apart.  I woke Casey up (I wish I had woken him up with "Thundercats are go!" - but I was in too much pain to be funny).  Casey timed the contractions for about 20 minutes and then we called the doctor at about 5:30 AM.  The doctor told us to go on in to the hospital, so off we went!!

We got to the hospital a little after 6 and checked in (did all the paperwork, fetal monitoring, etc.).  The doctor checked me out and said I was 3 cm and 100% effaced.  As soon as I got the monitor off, I walked around the maternity ward a little (walking is supposed to speed things up).  I then got back into the bed and we watched a little "30 Rock" - laughter is supposed to help too!!!

The contractions started coming about 3 min apart and the pain was getting a little too much for me so we called the anesthesiologist in for an epidural.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be!!   The epidural worked really well for a while and I was able to enjoy my "30 Rock" relatively pain-free.  The epidural wore off/stopped working at about 4 PM or so....not a good thing!!  They called the anesthesiologist and he told them that they could up the dosage - which made the bottom half of my body go numb!!  At that point, I didn't care.  

After almost 15 hours of labor, I started pushing at 6:45 PM.  Pushing when you can't feel the bottom half of your body is a little difficult so they eased back on the epidural dosage.  I regained a little bit of feeling in my legs but I also started to really feel the contractions again.  Ouch!!!

After 3 long hours of pushing, the Doctor (and myself) made the decision to do a cesarean section.  I was nervous but I also couldn't take the pain anymore.  The anesthesiologist started my epidural back up and I was wheeled into the operating room.  They checked to see if my abdomen was numb by nicking it with a scalpel.  The left side of me was numb but the right side wasn't!!!   They injected a local anesthetic into my right side and I was finally numb!  They brought Casey in to sit beside me and started the surgery.  All was well until it came time to extract Peyton.  His poor little head was lodged in my pelvis and they couldn't get the little guy out!!!  They had to have a nurse hold my hips while the Dr. tried to dislodge him.  At this time, I had started to regain feeling in my lower half and could feel what they were doing.  The anesthesiologist made the split second decision to knock me out completely (which I am certainly glad he did!)

They got Peyton out (he had a large bump on his forehead and the back of his head) and whisked him off to the nursery.  Casey got to see him get weighed and also carried him to the nursery.  At some point, Peyton peed all over Casey (welcome to fatherhood!!!).  They did an ultrasound on Peyton's head to make sure he was alright (he was) and then put him in a warmer.  

They finished up the surgery and wheeled me into recovery.   Yada, yada, yada....I got to see my son for the first time at 2 AM.  It was all worth it, though!!!!!!