I know you have all been eagerly awaiting this post... sorry for the delay :)!!

The newest member of our little family arrived on Oct. 1, 2010 at 6:57 A.M.  Weighing in at 7 lbs 5 oz and 18 1/2 inches long, Chloe Michelle is just perfect!! 

Labor started in the middle of the night about 11:30ish.  I was being woken up every half hour with a contraction, but fell back asleep in between them with no problem.  They felt different than the false contractions I have been feeling for months now, but I still didn't know if I was in real labor yet.  At 2:15, I woke up to another one and got up to use the bathroom as well.  I was a little surprised to have another, pretty painful contraction shortly after returning to bed and before I could fall back asleep.  When another came 9 minutes later I decided to wake up Ray.  This was definitely the real thing this time :). 

8 minutes later, as we discussed when to call my folks (my dad was our on call person to come be with Ainsley and Evelyn) another contraction hit.  That made our decision easy... we called right then and Papa started heading our way.  At this point Ray and I got up and started getting our stuff together.  This was difficult for me because as soon as I got out of bed again the contractions jumped from 8 minutes to 4-5 minutes apart and were significantly more painful!!  When they jumped again to 3-4 minutes apart I grew very nervous about waiting for dad to arrive (only about 20 minutes had passed at this point so I knew it would be a little while still).  I wasn't about to have this baby on the kitchen floor, so we gathered up the other two and headed to the hospital.  Papa arrived minutes after us and was able to get the girls back home.  Ainsley went back to bed easily... no surprise there.  Evelyn, well, that was a different story, haha.  Thank goodness for Papa!! 

So there I was, contractions 3 minutes apart and increasingly more painful... and no meds in sight.  When the nurse checked my status at about 3:45 I was at 3cm dilated... about the same as I was that morning at the doctor's office.  So not much progress had come with this pain so far and I was not very optimistic about this being a quick delivery.   She went to call my doctor, but in the meantime I still couldn't get anything for the pain :(.   And man did these things hurt!!  I really admire all of you that have had natural births!! 

It wasn't until 5 or so that my epidoral was administered and relief finally came!!  After that I was checked again and, to all of our surprise, had jumped to 8cm!!  WOW!  This was moving along and it was all good now because I no longer felt the pain :) :) :)!!

The next big moment came about 5:45 when my water broke... what a strange feeling that was.  My water bag had ruptured with Evelyn, but this time it actually burst... very different feeling, haha.  The nurse also checked me again and this time I was a full 10cm!!  How exciting!!  I thought for sure we were within minutes now.  But, I was wrong.  We still had to wait for my doctor to arrive, which didn't turn out to be for another hour!

Once she did get there though, things moved quickly.  She got in her scrubs and they prepped me.  When the pushing started it only took about a minute or so.  Then it happened... our little angel arrived!!  And she was absolutely PERFECT and worth every bit of pain :)!