The Anderson Family: Ode to the Epidural

Ok, so both kids are sleeping... maybe I can get a quick update on the blog without interruption.

Avery is just a perfect little girl! She is a little confused about when she should sleep soundly. She sleeps like an angel after every feeding throughout the day and turns into a wild woman at night. But that's okay because she's so darn cute I don't mind staring at her at 4:00 am.

So here's our birth story. It was soooo different from my first experience. I arrived at the hospital at 6 am on Friday and got all checked in. The doctor checked and said I was already 4 cm dilated so she would just break my water and see how things went. I started having good contractions around 7:00 and just listened to music from about 7-9. Then she said they weren't strong enough, so she wanted to add pitocin to intensify the contractions and speed things along. So at this point I have progressed to 5 cm. I was still doing good, just relaxing as much as I could and then the pitocin did it's job. I had about two five minute long contractions that had me in tears begging for the epidural, which was put in immediately with no pain whatsoever. The pain in front was too much to notice the giant needle in my back. The epidural did its job and I was comfortable by about 10:30. So I asked Jared to run to the gift shop and get me some gum and a t-shirt for Parker. While he's out they put me on oxygen because the baby's heart rate was dipping. He came back at 11:00 with lunch in hand and goodies to find out that the baby's head was right there and I was ready to push. He managed to scarf down his lunch while the doctor got me ready. I was still feeling nothing below the waist! Six pushes later Avery arrived at 11:41. I just kept telling the doctor I couldn't believe I had delivered her so quickly and with no pain! All the myths about epidurals seem to be false.... she nursed for an hour after delivery so she wasn't tired, I could not feel a thing but still managed to push effectively, and my feeling returned in about 2 hours. If there are women who deliver naturally with pitocin on board they are soooo much tougher than me! You guys deserve serious medals.

Jared was wonderful through the whole thing. I think I scared him a bit when he came back and saw me on oxygen and nurses getting us ready. He had a much easier job this time than with my 17 hour labor with Parker.

The only negative about having an epidural is having 3 bags of fluid pumped into you so that all your after birth photos make you look like the stay puff marshmallow man! See evidence below! That is my wonderful OB- Dr. Hays!