L.O., L.O., L.O.V.E
(for those of you who don't know, that's an Ashley Simpson song)

This post will be the tale of my birthing experience. If you are at all squimish or don't like too many details, DON'T READ MY BLOG!! For those of you who know me, this will be right up your alley!

My story begins on a friday; July 16th, 2010, to be exact. I woke up, took Mitch to work in the morning, and spent the rest of the day lounging. How does this induce labor you ask? It doesn't. However, when I picked Mitch up from work we decided to go shopping for a video camera. Background info... Mitch's parents had a video camera when he was born and he loves watching his own footage. He therefore thought it a good idea to get family video's for our future children. Continuing on... we shoppped for about 5 hours that evening. Basically until everything closed up for the night. Now at 38 weeks huge preggers, that's a lot of walking. By the time we got home I was incredibly sore and tired, and of course grouchy. We decided to start a movie to unwind and made it about 1/2 way through before calling it a night. Lame, I know. It was like 10:30! So through the night I had some contractions, but nothing consistant or worth getting out of bed for. I woke up on Saturday morning around 9. Mitch of course was still sleeping so I made some breakfast, and started watching t.v.. Mitch decided to come to life around 10 at which time we decided to finish our movie. Sidenote... we were watching the Incredible Hulk. At 10:30-ish I had a really strong contraction, after which I looked at Mitch and said, "I think that was more than a Braxton Hicks!" 3 minutes later I had another one that was even stronger and brought tears to my eyes. O.k. fine, I cried out. It seriously hurt like an S.O.B.! After that contraction I felt a gush of fluids exiting my crotchel region. I shouted out in joy, "I think that's my water breaking!"and took off for the bathroom. When I got to the bathroom and finally looked down I noticed an extreme amount of blood. Bright red, fresh blood. Not so good. I jumped in the shower, still having contractions every 3 minutes, and told Mitch what to finish packing for my hospital bag. Once he was ready we quickly got in the car and headed for the Miseracordia Hospital. We arrived in emergancy at 11:00 and I was immediately taken to admitting then the antepartum room. The OB on call was Dr. Roy, who was extremely nice and told me that due to the amount of blood loss I would be admitted and be having my baby one way or another that day. I was then taken to a delivery room where my wonderful nurse Amy started my IV (of course right in my wrist) and got me comfortable. Other than poor choice in IV placement she really was great. She was also expecting and due in November. I asked her if working in labor and delivery made her nervous about her own upcoming experience. Anywho. I had asked Amy if I could have an epidural and I was told that I had to have blood work drawn and needed to wait for the results prior to Dr. Roy agreeing to anything. Boo whore. Please keep in mind, I'm still having contractions every 3 minutes, sans pain control of any kind. Another boo whore. Well STAT blood work takes at least an hour to complete so I waited. Everything came back with acceptable results so Amy called the Anesthetist pronto. Dr. Flexor was his name. He got my epidural in lickitty-split and and HOUR AND A HALF later it finally started to work. Apparently Dr. Flexor has never had contractions (he was a man) and likes to run his epidurals like weak-sauce. However, once it started to work life was great. I slept, chatted with Mitch, updated facebook, played on my itouch, etc. Good times! I highly recommend epidurals. O.k. moving on a couple hours. Amy decided to start a pitocin drip as I had only dilated from 3cm to 6cm in a couple hours. Too long for my liking and Dr. Roy's! That was around 5:15 pm. Not knowing how quickly pitocin would work for me I told Mitch at 6-ish that he should go and get the camera we had picked out. We had chosen one the night before but had decided to sleep on it because we thought we could just go back out and get it later. Silly us. When I sent him out I specifically told him to be back no later than 7. Well of course a few minutes after Mitch left the hospital I felt "the urge to bear down!" That always sounds so disgusting to me. I felt like pushing around 6:45, so I just thought that I could handle it for a few more minutes until Mitch got back. HA! At 7:15 he still hadn't returned. Amy came back to my room at this point and could see that I was a little panicky. She asked where my husband had gone, so I explained. Luckily there was a phone in my room so she let me use it to call my missing husband. He could also hear the panic in my voice and came back quickly; camera in tow! and VOILA!! 8:10pm Sophia LeeAnn Hughes was born. She weighed in at 7lbs 5oz., was 20" long, and her head circumference was 33cm. She had lots of dark brown hair and was covered in the disgusting vernix. I had a slight tear, thanks to her need to have her hands on her face; thanks a lot child! Here are some pics of her from fresh to now, 3 weeks post womb exit. I just love her!

This last one is my favorite. Her little finger got caught in her nostril so it looks like she's waving, and she's super alert in it. I just LOVE her.