Birth Story

Sorry I've been MIA; DP and I are learning about/adapting to/loving life with baby C.
Birth Story: At about 4:30 PM on 1/5, I was relaxing on the couch when I felt a warm little trickle. It really wasn't much fluid (didn't even soak through to my pants) so I thought I might have just peed myself a little. LOL. I told DP when she got home from work, and neither of us put too much thought into it. Especially since I wasn't contracting at all. Then at about 8 PM, I was walking down the hall and it happened again. A little more fluid this time, but still not much. I decided to call the doc. It took almost an hour for the on call OB to get back to me, and she said I should come in just to get checked. I still had in my head that there was a possibility I was just losing bladder control since I was 39 weeks pregnant, and I was worried about what the nurses would think once they found out I came in because I peed myself. So we did some last minute hospital bag packing (we had most everything together, but we needed toiletries, etc.) and drove 45 minutes to the hospital. We checked in to the birthing suite, they had me fill out paper work, then the nurse tested the fluid and sure enough I had a high amniotic leak. She checked my cervix and I was at 3 cm and about 90% effaced. After the cervix check, I started to contract a little, but they were still very mild. DP and I rested as best we could, because every 5 minutes the nurse would have to come in and adjust the monitors because baby C was all over the place. At about 5 am I had progressed to 7 cm and was fully effaced. The contractions were still ok; a little more intense, but the pain didn't keep me from carrying on a conversation, etc. A little after the last cervix check, my water full on broke, and the contractions got very very bad. I asked for an epidural by about 6 am. The epidural was amazing, but it was a little uneven. My right side was completely numb, while my left still had some feeling. The nurse said I was having very strong contractions about 1-2 minutes apart, but I could barely tell. At about 7 am, my OB surprised me by showing up (she wasn't supposed to be in the city...she was supposed to be at another office in a different city). She checked me and I was still at a 7. She said she would do her best to make it to the other office and back before I delivered, but that I should prepare for her partner (the OB I switched from earlier in the pregnancy) to deliver. I was disappointed to say the least. They put me on a very slow drip of pitocin, since the epidural had slowed things down. I started to feel a lot of pain on my left side, so my epidural had to be re-dosed. By 9:30 am I was at 9 cm and the nurse called my OB to let her know. Initially, my OB told the nurse to call the office and let the other OB know they'd have to deliver. But 30 minutes after that, my OB called back and told my nurse to offer me the choice of have the doc I switched from come now, or turn the pitocin off and labor down for a while and wait for her. I chose to have the pitocin turned off. Baby was still fairly high up in the birth canal, and I would have just been pushing that whole time anyway. So right before noon, my OB runs in and announces "let's push out a baby!" I was very glad she could make it. I pushed for 20 minutes or so, and Baby C was born at 12:27 PM on 1/6/11. He weighed 7 pounds 2 oz, and is 20.5 inches long. He surprised us all with a full head of gorgeous blonde hair. Several nurses said it looked like he had highlights. LOL. We are in love.