Welcome to the world Grace!

Welcome Grace Sophia Redcay!

So sometime around midnight on Sunday night I started to get contractions. But they weren't anything fantastic so I pretty much slept through them. Around 2am I decided to start timing them and they were about 8 minutes apart. By 7am when we all got out of bed (leave it to Jack to sleep in on THIS day) they were 5 to 6 minutes apart. I got in the shower, then Eric howered and we were at the hospital by 9:30.

Apparently I didn't look like I was in labor so the nurses almost gave me a hard time about being there. The one nurse was downright snotty because I hadn't called my doctor for him to tell me to come in. Uh thanks but it's 9:30 and my contractions are 2 to 4 minutes apart, I'm pretty darn sure I'm about to have this baby. Dummy. Anyway, they hooked me up and sure enough, now they believe me. And I was at 3 cm. The one admitting nurse that I really liked popped her head in and asked me to rate the contractions on a scale of 1 to 10 and I told her 7. She just smiled and said that I was her pain hero. I guess that means I have a high threshold for pain? They admitted me by 10:30 and the contractions were no more than a minute apart. I walked
the hallways and my room for about an hour and just couldn't take it anymore and asked for the epidural. Eric and Leah agreed that I had put in my dues and if I wanted it that I earned it. Well, once again there wasn't enough time. The nurse couldn't find a vein to put the IV in and my blood work hadn't even been run when the doctor came in to check on me because she was on her way to do a c-section. I was in the middle of a contraction and she was going to leave without
checking how dialated I was (in her defense, I hadn't really been there that long I don't think she knew how close I was) but I managed to ask her to check me right in the middle of my contraction (all back labor again. ugh). She checked and I was at 9 cm and Graces head was
right there. So she told the nurse to stop trying for the IV because I was going to be ready to push before the conversation was over. The doctor left to get ready and to postpone her c-section, I managed (barely) through a few more contractions that made me want to jump out
of my skin. The doctor got back and she wanted me to try a practice push. Practice! Ha! That was the first push. She told me that when the next contraction came to "get angry and push" (LOL!) so I did. Out came Grace. Two pushes. (Yay me!) All 8 lbs 2 ounces of her. Yikes, I really had no idea she would be that big.

So not only was my little daughter too stubborn to listen to all of us and be born early in August (little stinker waited until Sept 1) but then when she came out she also wanted to wave HI to the world and brought her hand out next to her face. Little stinker, she must be my kid.

I'll save you all the details of what needed to be fixed up on me but all in all I actually feel really good. And so far so good with the breastfeeding!