She's Here (Finally!!)

Taylor Kathryn Grace arrived last night at 11:58 p.m. weighing in at 7lbs 7 oz. I just couldn't hold out for midnight to get the first baby of the year! We did get a gift for having the last baby of the year, though, from H&R Block with a bunch of gifts that say: Change me, Feed me, Deduct me. They also took our picture, I'm not sure why but we feel kind of special.

I had a feeling yesterday was going to be the day as I was really crampy and nauseous in the morning and then started having contractions. At 12:45 I took a couple tablespoons of Castor Oil to really get things going and by 1:15 I was having good contractions every 5 minutes. They continued every 4-5 minutes until about 7:30 when I decided to go the hospital. It took over 2 hours to get through the E.R., registration and triage so I'm glad I went while the pain was still tolerable. I finally got into my room at 10:15 and my midwife was all ready here. I was dilated to 5 and then she broke my water. I labored in the tub until 11:54 when she came in to check me and said your dilated to 9.5 and you have 6 minutes to get the baby out for the new year! As soon as I heard that instead of getting out of the tub and going to the bed, when the next contraction came I was so relieved to get to push I pushed her out in one push while still in the tub (there was very little water in it.) Needless to say everyone was in shock including myself:)

My contractions were very painful but I had nice breaks in between them up until the last 15 minutes of labor so I feel very lucky as I know that the labor could have been a lot worse (as Little Man's was: 6 hours of hard labor in the tub.) The poor baby came out so fast, though, that she is all bruised on her face:( I think she is still beautiful and am so glad that she is here.