Here's what happened the day of delivery....it's kind of a long read because it was a very long day and Tim documented everything for us! :)

At 4:30am we received a call from the hospital asking us to wait to come in until 7am rather than 5:30am. We arrived at the hospital at 7am and were immediately admitted into a Labor & Delivery room. At 7:50am they did an exam and I was dilated to 3.5cm, 80% effaced and at a -2 station. Dr. Patronella broke my water after the exam. At 8:05am I reminded Tim to set his Fantasy Nascar lineup, which he thought was pretty funny! :) At 8:12am they started me on pitocin at 6 milliunits, at 8:30am they increased it to 12 milliunits, then to 18 milliunits and at 9:05am to 24 milliunits. At 9:35am I was dilated to 4cm. At 9:40am they increased the pitocin again to 30 milliunits. Around this time my contractions were getting pretty strong and more painful so they administered an epidural at 10:30am. At 11:15am I was dilated to 5cm, 90% effaced and at -1 station. They also increased the pitocin to 36 milliunits. My epidural started to wear off and I began to feel pain again because it was not done properly by the first lady who did it. So another doctor had to come in and take out the first one and give me a whole other epidural! This time it did not hurt at all because he knew what he was doing!

By 1:30pm I was dilated to 6cm and 100% effaced! Right after that exam the nurse noticed the baby's heart rate had dropped significantly and did another exam immediately. Within 2 minutes I had dilated from 6cm to 8cm!! The pitocin was turned off and I was given an oxygen mask for me and the baby. They started me on a low dose of pitocin again around 2:10pm and increased it in 15 minute increments. At 2:50pm I started to feel pain again and it turned out that my epidural catheter was blocked and the pump had stopped! So they gave me another injection of pain meds through my epidural and restarted the pump and I started to feel better again. I was also dilated to 9.5 cm. By 4pm I was dilated to 10cm and started pushing at 4:05pm. By 4:25pm I was pushing regularly with each contraction. After 1.5 hours of pushing, Karys was born at 6:13pm and I was able to hold her after they cleaned her up. She was then taken to the nursery where she got 9 out of 10 points on the apgar scale! She's so great!!

We finally got to a post partum room and got to to see our daughter again by 9pm and we gave her her first bottle at 9:35pm. When the nurse first brought her to us, she explained that Karys had a broken clavicle (collar bone). They explained that this is fairly common with first babies when they are coming down the birth canal. They said she isn't in any pain and that it will heal on it's own in a matter of weeks. We just have to keep her bound up, which is easy right now since she is swaddled anyway. And we have an appointment with our pediatrician on Monday and she will give us further instructions on how to take care of it.

Overall, the entire process was a lot harder than I ever anticipated it being. Pushing was by far the hardest part but a lot of my pain meds had worn off too I think which made it a lot harder on me (I have a high tolerance to pain medications!). But once they put Karys in my arms, everything was worth it. I felt so much love in that instant and was just amazed at how beautiful and perfect she was. She was worth every second of it and I wouldn't trade her for anything in the world!!