If you want the details of how it all went down...

I'm so amazed at how God works outside of our expectations and creates better situations than what we can imagine for ourselves. When they told me I was scheduled for induction, I was glad the end was in sight but sort of upset. The anticipation of the surprise moment when labor begins is just fun...and even though we had gone through the week of being past-due and were becoming almost indifferent to "waiting", we were still sort of disappointed that there would be no surprise and we had an official date set for this birth. Turns out, I'm SO GLAD it worked out this way. We got to enjoy our last night "alone" together Monday and Tuesday morning as actually fun...waking up knowing what was going to happen that day. Plus, I think it put me in a sort of "surrender" mode and made me much more flexible. I wasn't "set" on a natural delivery...just wanted to see how far I could go naturally and experience the pain because well, it's just part of it right? Knowing I was to be given pitocin I had mentally prepared to have an epidural because I knew there was a possibility for some unnaturally intense contractions, at least from what I had heard. My docs turned out to have a great perspective on inductions-take it super slow and don't create an artificially intense situation. At any rate, I was much more open to, actually was counting on, the epidural, instead of being determined to hold it off as long as possible.

My nurse was superfantastic, I had met her earlier in the week actually during some non-stress testing. Had the perfect balance of historically working with midwives but bridging over to the hospital setting, so she was a great match. Pitocin started at 815 am and progress, regarding dilating, was pretty slow until they broke my water around 1-1:30 (I think this is what time it was???). Throughout the morning I was allowed to do yoga, sit on a birthing ball, walk around as far as my cords would let me, etc. We worked and breathed through contractions as they grew. Contraction just before water breaking was minor....contraction immediately following water breaking was ridiculously more intense. So crazy. They say that's what happens...I just wouldn't have believed how drastic the change was without experiencing it for myself. They just got increasingly intense from then on, and rapidly...the monitor just looked like a bunch of waves with no breaks in between. They dropped my pitocin level, which was already very conservative, but by then I had realized that I was not interested in going through this pain for what could potentially be several hours. Since things had been moving slowly all morning, I figured I could go on like this until late that night, which just didn't seem sustainable for me. I was already on IV because of pitocin so I opted to try Statol (no idea if that is spelled correctly) first, which was supposed to "take the edge off." Well, I felt like I was half asleep, which was sort of entertaining, but it doesn't do much to help with pain from contractions. They intensified and I decided to call in for an epidural since the anesthesiologist isn't always available right away. Fortunately, she came up within like 20 minutes. The Statol was a great help here..I HATE needles. I've always dreaded an epidural, even when I said I was never having kids. The statol had me so drugged up in the head that it took away the anxiety and allowed me to just focus on my breathing to steady myself through contractions while they did the epidural. Again, the nurse was amazingly helpful here, and the whole process went off without a hitch, even through some major contractions.

The drugs took a bit to kick in, and then they had to add more here and there because it wasn't working in one spot (not a huge deal, but I figured hey, you wanna fix it and make me comfortable, go right ahead!), but wow..am I glad I decided to do that. Went from the pain of contractions to being able to relax a bit and just putting up with constant shaking. I got the epidural around maybe 3ish? I was 4 cm dilated at that point. They checked me at 5 and I was 9cm. Guess that's why they had to beef up the epidural dose...transition happened nearly immediately and I am sure I would have lost my mind in pain if I hadn't have gotten the drugs right then. It was really the only window of opportunity I guess in retrospect. My doc came in at 530, declared me 10cm dilated, and we started the pushing around 545ish....after a few minutes of "practice" pushing, I figured I may as well give it all I had and use my fitness to get this baby out ASAP! Jonathan got to help out by holding one of my legs/feet, which he was glad for. 25 minutes of hard pushing later, Amaris showed up and amazed the world with her unanticipated size-and sex.

All in all....again, I cannot complain. No screaming , yelling, freaking out-before or after the drugs kicked in. Everyone was calm and helpful. What an amazingly smooth pregnancy and delivery, and so far, awesome recovery. God is gracious. And now we have this "little" girl...I said when we came into the hospital a girl was my prediction, my doc said the same. But it was still a shock to learn that this baby was, in fact, a girl. The "odds were against" such a thing..from 25 years with no girls born on my maternal side, to 3 out of the 4 new Ruiz family babies being boys, it was pretty surprising to have a "she" show up. I think the moms (grandmoms) were pleased to not have to deal with the name "Onyn." Just wasn't meant to be!

Anyhow..time to go prepare to go home. Quite ready for that, this room is a boring place after so many hours. Ug. And its pretty exciting to be taking home our little "Padawan" (sorry, we are in a serious Star Wars phase right now...) and beginning new life as a family of 3 instead of 2 and having a human baby instead of only cats. Thanks so much, everyone, for all of your support and for sharing in our joy. Seriously, much of our own joy comes from seeing how excited everyone else gets and how a little baby lights up the world for everyone around her. It's a wild thing. If you're in the area and want to stop and meet Amaris definitely go for it. Maybe we'll try to keep up blogging again now that we'll have more exciting pictures and stories than "oh we're still waiting." !