Welcome to the World, Sara Grace

Create a free picture collage It's hard for me to believe that little Sara is 11 days old already! This time last week, we learned that we were going into the hospital Friday night to start inducing labor. I was a bundle of nerves and excitement. Friday seemed to drag on. I met with the doctor in the morning to review the process and what to expect. My parents came by to pick up Belle, and then Brian and I headed out to the hospital for our 9pm induction. In the parking garage at the hospital, reality hit me. We were finally going to meet our precious little miracle that we have been waiting for. I started to cry as we got out of the car, for I knew the next time I was in the car, I was going to be someone's mommy and Brian was going to be a daddy! Our nurse was waiting for us when we arrived. She showed us to Labor and Deliver Room 7. I thought it was a good, lucky room. We got settled, reviewed paperwork, and got an IV started.

Pitocin was started at 10pm and so did the waiting game. I started having mild contractions around midnight and started getting somewhat uncomfortable around 3am. I was still waiting for the "big ones". Brian and I got very little sleep that night, since my monitor didn't like to stay on, my nurse came in frequently to up my dose of pitocin, and the trauma helicoptor kept landing. We also experienced a fire drill that night. So, definately not a "quiet night". The nurse said the L&D unit was busy as well and we joked about the full moon that was occuring.

As the sun came up, the nurse checked me again. I was making slow progress, but still making progress. My pitocin was upped again and my water broke around 8:30. Dr. Wells came to see how I was doing. He joked that I was making his job easy since my water broke on it's own. He hoped this was going to speed things up. He placed another monitor that could measure the strenght of my contractions to make sure that I was in a good, strong contraction pattern. Then we waited some more!

By 4pm, I still hadn't made much progress. Dr. Wells and I decided that it was time to do a c-section after 18 hours on pitocin and only progressing to 4cm. Everything became a whirlwind at this point. I was in the OR by 4:30pm and our precious little one was born at 4:57pm. Dr. Wells lifted the baby up so Brian could make his big announcement. We had a little girl! Then, I heard the most beautiful sound in the world, her sweet cries!

Brian went with the nurses as the cleaned up our little girl and he got to cut the cord. Since Dr. Wells had been predicting a big baby and was joking about it before starting the c-section, the nurse had to weigh her twice because no one could believe what a little bundle she was. This time is really hazy for me. I had developed the shakes really bad and the anethelogist had given me some medication to help that made me really sleepy. I remember hearing her, but don't really remember seeing her.

After being in recovery for an hour or so, I was finally wheeled up to my room and Brian and our daughter came in shortly after with the nurse. The nurse handed me this perfect 6 pound 14 ounce package of pure joy. In that moment, how I look at the world was forever changed. I am a mother, Brian is a father, and we are a family of three. We have all that we have waited for, and I couldn't ask for more!

Meeting my daughter for the first time: