How Mackenzie Grace came to be...

By now, everyone knows that our little princess has arrived and is healthy and happy. We could not be happier and feel more blessed by our bundle of joy. She is absolutely perfect. I had a fairly easy pregnancy and the labor was very similar, thank goodness. We learned during the pregnancy that less than 10% of labors begin with the water breaking and then contractions that follow, but that is exactly what happened for us. It was actually very similar to what you might see in a movie. I had some false labor pains on Sunday, March 25th but nothing major. I was planning to go to work on Monday morning and my lunch was packed and my clothes were laid out and ready to go. I had fallen asleep around 11:00pm and woke up at 11:40 with one pain, which I did not think anything of, but decided to go to the bathroom since I was awake. I knew I would have to go soon regardless. My water broke 2 minutes later! As soon as my water broke I started having contractions. We called the doctor and he told us to head to the hospital. I don't think I have ever seen Craig move so quickly! He had the car packed in less than 2 minutes and was ready to go! We were in the car and headed to the hospital at 12:01am. Go figure that it was 1 minute into our OB's vacation. Oh well! We had a pretty good idea that we would deliver when she was out of town. It all worked out in the end regardless of her absence. By 1:00am we were in the labor and delivery room and I was getting my IV. I had never had one before and it made me slightly light headed and nauseous. After the IV was in the nurse checked my cervix and I was 4cm dilated. Woohoo! That was progress from the previous week at the doctor. Once I had a full bag of IV in me, the anesthesiologist came in to administer the epidural. This is where the fun really began! Apparently I have scoliosis which makes administering an epidural much more difficult. It took FIVE attempts to actually get the epidural in. Now the next step was making sure that it took. Well... here was the second issue. It only numbed the left side of my body, so we had to have the anesthesiologist come back in and adjust it. And just for safe measure, she gave me two more doses of the drugs to really help it kick in. I ended up needing to lie on my side to help numb the right side as well. It eventually took and took REALLY WELL. I could not feel anything from my stomach down. I had absolutely NO body control over my hips and legs. That was a very strange feeling. Once the epidural was in and working the nurse checked my cervix for the second time. Now I was 6cm dilated!!! Since things were progressing they wanted us to try and get some sleep. That was easier said than done for the lady who could not feel half of her body. Craig was able to get to sleep which was really good. I think he got about 3 hours of sleep and I got 3 hours of watching TV. The nurse came back into the room about 6:30am to check my cervix again before the next nurse started at 7:00. Now I was a full 10cm dilated! YAHOO!!! Things progressed very quickly and we were almost ready to start pushing. We waited until about 8:15am to actually start pushing and Dr. Goldman came in about 8:45am. Pushing was difficult because I was so incredibly numb from the epidural. The doctor ended up turning off the epidural to try and give me a little feeling back so my pushing would be more productive. Everything ended up working out and Mackenzie Grace was born at 9:32am. She came out head up which is why we pushed for over an hour. Looking back everything was well worth it. Craig and I would do the whole process over again to get our little miracle in the end. She is absolutely perfect and we could not be more in love with her already.