Friday night I started feeling pretty crappy and achy but it went away so I just went to bed and tried to forget it. Saturday afternoon I was feeling cramps and a backache, so I got on the treadmill and walked for a minute hoping it would bring on some stronger contractions, but as soon as I stepped off they quit. By this time I think I'd had it because I'd been in early labor for two days now. I got up the guts and drank the castor oil I'd had for a week and not dared do it. Eeww- that's something you never forget either! I went to bed that night hoping it really would work for me; not sleeping due to the on-and-off contractions and backache.
Well, Sunday morning 5:00 AM rolled around and I hopped out of bed so fast thinking I'd just wet the bed! They say you sometimes can't tell the difference and I sure couldn't for the longest time; I kept telling Jed, I think my water broke but how do I be sure and when do we go to the hospital? I waited around until 7ish when the contractions were really bad and we decided to go over. By the time we were checked in and I was in a room they were killer enough to cripple so the nurse said I could get the epidural right away. Oh man, can I just say how thankful I am for modern medicine and facilities; I would haved died in childbirth if I were a pioneer.
Once the epidural kicked in, labor went really fast and around 12:30 I was ready to start pushing. That's when things got really difficult- I pushed for THREE hours and couldn't get poor baby girl past my pubic bone. (Sorry for the TMI...) The doctor said she was stuck and no matter how good I was doing with my pushes, (and yes they WERE good, I watched the monitor the whole time!) I wasn't going to get her out by myself. He talked for a split second about a c-section but said forceps would do the trick with a decent episiotemy. Well, the salad tongs and a little cut sounds much better than surgery to me, so that's what we did and at 4:00 baby girl finally made an appearance.
I'm a little morbid, but I had to watch in the mirror while I was being sewn back together while Jed went with baby to be cleaned and weighed. She was 7lbs, 18 in. and had dark hair all over!
We still didn't have a name at that point, so she spent most of her first day of life with us nameless. The next day we settled on "Ary". We both liked the sound with "Argyle" and are going to use that spelling even if some can't pronounce it as "Aury" because I like it without the U.
Long story short, the first night was absolute Hell for me between the drop in hormones messing with my emotions and not enough pain killers in the world, but life is good again. We are all home safe and happy and Jed is such a good mother to the both of us. I appreciate him more than I have in all the years we've been married. Good job mother Teresa raising him- you did so well:)
He's going to be home with us for the rest of the weekend and come to Ary's first doctor visit on Monday.

Meeting each other for the first time
After the first bath (check out the hairdo!)
Yep, a mullet!
A peanut in the carseat
Intro to Schroeder:)


Now the hard part for me: getting everything put away and organized how I want it in her room. I don't even have everything set up yet, let alone decorated and put together- thinking about it stresses me out. Ahhh I get overwhelmed too easily with all of this stuff now that it's really time to get going with it. I'd better get over freakout mode pretty quick or both baby and I are in for it when she gets here!