Introducing...

The little guy is finally sleeping soundly in his basinette so while I have my arms free for a minute I'm going to type this up real fast :) I have a feeling it'll be long winded so this is your warning!

My water broke at around 12:15am Sunday night/Monday morning. I hadn't been able to sleep and had been tossing and turning for about an hour and a half with back pain. The break started just like a little gush and every time I moved it got a little worse. I was kind of nervous that it wasn't my actual water breaking but, knowing that I'd been dilated to 3cm at my doctor's appointment on the Tuesday prior, we knew that it was safer to head to the hospital and check. On the way to the hospital we were both so nervous that we felt like we were going to be sick. Every light that we came up to was red!

The hospital confirmed my water had broken, declared me 4cm dilated and checked me in. We got into our L&D room at about 2:15am. By that time I was having contractions that were about 40 seconds long, every 3-5 minutes. They were pretty painful but the nurse labeled them "mild." That was scary lol.

When the morning shift came on at 7am I was checked again and still at a 4 with my contractions not getting any stronger or closer together. At around 8:30am they started me on pitocin to augment my labor (they had to make sure he came within a certain time period since my waters had broken which opens baby up to more risk of infection). The contractions picked up in intensity fast. It wasn't like anything I could describe. At 10:30am I was at 6cm and my contractions were coming hard. I got an epidural (the worst part of the entire labor was having to sit through an intense contraction with my back hunched in order to get the epi- yikes) and once it kicked in (pretty instantly) it was like Heaven. Josh and I slept for about 2 hours.

At noon they started me on antibiotics since it had been 12 hours since my water had broken. At 1:30pm I was at 7cm. A bunch of family popped in to wish us luck and decorate the baby's crib with ribbons from my baby showers. We were chatting away but I was starting to feel more pressure despite the epi. My nurse (who was AMAZING) checked me at 2:30. I was fully dilated and complete. I labored down for 30 minutes before the doctor got there and baby was at +3 station (getting ready to crown) when I started pushing at about 3pm. After a little over 20 minutes of pushing Elliot was born at 3:26pm, weighing in at 7lb6oz and 20.5in long. He scored 2 9s on the apgar and has been perfect. We were able to come home a little over 24 hours later (last night) and life is good :) I only had 2 minor internal tears and I'm feeling really good- just sore.

Josh was really amazing through the whole thing- I couldn't have done it without him. He was the best support imaginable. And he's still being amazing! He has this week off of work and it's been incredible to have him with us :) I'm not sure what I'll do without him next week! Elliot really loves his daddy and Josh is a natural!