Anderson Family Adventures: Abigail Susan arrives!!

This weekend began like any other weekend. We had our usual birthday party on Saturday morning (I swear we go to a birthday part every weekend), and the the rest of the day was consumed with laundry and other weekend activities. :) Sunday morning I woke up around 3:30 to go the bathroom (again, nothing new there), and when I laid back down I felt kinda funny. I quickly realized that the cramps where actually contractions, and they were coming about every 5-7 minutes. That's when I decided it was time for Michael to join in the fun!!! :) So, I woke him up, and he started timing the length and time between. They were a steady 5 minutes apart, and lasting about 50 seconds to a minute. This lasted for about 45 minutes. For the sake of TMI, I will leave out other details, but I ended up calling the doctor after about 50 minutes of contractions, and he said for us to head on over to L&D. So after a phone call to my mom to come sit with Caleb, we were off to the hospital. :)

Last Monday when I went to the doctor, I was barely 1 cm and 50% effaced, so when I got to the hospital I wasn't expecting anything too exciting. Well...I was 4cm and 90% effaced when I got there! I was shocked -- I never made it past 2cm without meds with Caleb!!! At this point, my doctor wanted to me to walk for an hour and then they would re-check me. At this point, my contractions were getting very strong and much closer together. Let's just say that this was not the best hour of my life. :) After the hour walk, it was time to re-check. I was at 5cm and almost completely effaced. I was begging for the epidural at this point, and my doctor OK'ed it, but I had to have the bag of fluids first. They started that, and said it would be about an hour before I was comfortable. To make a long story short, the doctor came in about 15 minutes later and checked me again, and I was at 8 almost 9! He then ordered the the epidural because it was almost too late!!! So I got the epidural and about almost immediately I started having pains in the backs of both of my thighs, so I told the doctor. He wasn't too sure about it, so he said he would check me and see what was going on. Well, he sat down, took 1 look at me, and said, "Well, that is because she is right there. It's time to push!" 10 minutes and 3 pushes later, Abigail Susan Anderson entered the world at 10:12AM, weighing 6 pounds, 10 ounces and 20 3/4 inches long. She has a head full of black, wavy hair, and looks remarkably like her big brother, Caleb. Our new family of 4 is doing well, and we feel so blessed to have this baby girl with us!

I don't have many pics of my camera, but here are 2 to get you started. Most of the pics are on Michael's camera. I'll post those soon!