Because I have had many requests...

I'm going to share my labor and delivery story. So many people have asked me about it. I'm not going to mention anything nasty or anything like that. But I don't know if men necessarily want to read. I know Brent probably wouldn't choose to read something like this. lol!

I walked into my labor and delivery room at 4pm on the Feb 11th. All the procedures that were to take place were explained to me in complete detail. By the way, I have to say this: Pres is the BEST hospital in Albuquerque. I don't care what anybody else thinks on this matter. haha! At around 5pm, they gave me the first dosage of med that was supposed to soften and stretch my cervix. I was 1cm dialated at the time. The med was a pill that went straight into my cervix, not through an IV. I was supposed to get a dosage of that every 4 hours for 10-12 hours. Then they were going to start the Pitocin to induce contractions. Well, I didn't need that.

My contractions started almost immediately. They didn't start to hurt until about 9 or 10pm. They gave me some pain meds through an IV that would not affect Autumn at all. In fact, it helped me for only about 30 minutes. It was supposed to help for 2 hours...no way!

Around 2am I got myself an epidural. There was no way I was going to go through needless pain and I needed sleep. I was 3cm dialated. While putting the epidural in, most doctors will send out all family. Well, that didn't happen. Brent wasn't watching. He was holding my hand as they were putting it in, but he peeked at the end. Not seeing anything, he still knew what was going on. He got really white and almost passed out! Stupid doctors for not sending him out of the room! They made him sit down and drink some juice and I said, "Breathe through this contraction with me. It will make you feel better." And so he did. lol! He felt better a little while later.

I fell asleep. Yay...except all the machine beeping and freaking out woke me up quite often. Around 8am a nurse came in to check on me. I was 10+cm dialated, ready to practice push. After one "practice" push, we realized I was ready to push. She saw the head. I pushed for an hour. I was told I was a great pusher. Yay me! I had to get an oxygen mask because mine and the baby's oxygen dropped while I was pushing. It helped! I'll remember that for the next time. They had to start a small drip of Pitocin because when I started to push, the contractions slowed down. Weird, huh? Yeah. They asked me, "Would you like to touch the head?" My answer: "No! Gross!" lol! Brent was asked to cut the umbilical cord. He had told me before he didn't want to. I didn't mind. It was his choice. So when asked, " Would you like to cut the cord?" His answer: "No!" All the people in the room except for me started to give him a hard time. Then I got on them, "Don't make him!" My own mother cut the cord. Oh! People that were present: a midwife (my OB was called to an emergency c-section), a nurse, Brent, my mom and my step-mom.

Autumn Grace Conner was born at 9:01am on Feb 12. 4lb. 13oz. 18 1/2 in.