Happy 1st Birthday Lily!!!!

I went back in my blog posts to find where I had written about Lily's birth story. And in the midst of the craziness of having a baby, I realized that I didn't blog about that! So in honor of Lily's 1st birthday today, I will retell Lily's birth story. Here's what I wrote in her baby book:

I was scheduled to be induced on Wednesday November 21st but ended up going in to labor on my own that morning at 2:30AM. I woke up to contractions that were about 10 minutes apart. I at first couldn't believe that it was actually happening! By 6AM they had been coming every 4-6 minutes for awhile so we called the midwife and headed to the hospital about 6:30AM. They hooked me up to all the monitors and did a cervical check. I was only 1-2cm. I thought for sure I was at least 4 by that time! So they didn't want me to get the epidural yet until I was a little farther along. I got in the bathtub for awhile which really did help some but it was still the most incredible pain I've ever felt! I finally got the epidural at 10:30AM which was a breeze and not painful at all. DEFINITELY glad I went that route. It was wonderful not having any pain at all! Around 5cm I slowed down and wasn't progressing so the midwife broke my water. That didn't help so they started me on just a little bit of pitocin. That did the trick and started making things progress really quickly. Around 6 or 7PM I was fully dilated but my midwife was delivering a baby next door so I had to wait for her to get done. I was starting to feel pain again so they sent in the anesthesiologist to give me a booster shot and that got rid of the pain really quickly. I started pushing around 7:45PM. Matt and a nurse held my legs up for me to push and they had a mirror which helped me to see my progress and Lily's head starting to emerge. Since I had the epidural and didn't feel the contractions the mirror helped me to know I was pushing good. I pushed for about 45 minutes and she was out! I tore (level 2) because Lily's arms were crossed across her chest. Matt got to cut the cord and then for a minute they let me have her up on my chest before they took her to clean her off, do vitals, etc.

She was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. No words can describe how you feel in that very moment. Here is my beautiful baby girl when she was born and now at 1 year old!