this is my first post as a new, proud momma & i have a feeling I will hardly be able to keep up this whole blogging thing with the same dedication I had prior to Layla :/

However, i'm running on a decent 3 hours of sleep and had a miniscule amount of free time that I decided to use for this :)

Well, note from my last post*: sex (and possibly walking) definitely do the trick. Late last thursday night, I was fed up with being pregnant. I'd done some more power walking with mom earlier that evening, and Tanner & I decided, what the hell? Let's give sex a go & see what happens. If nothing else, we'll have a little bit of fun. It was a successful, though hilarious, attempt. And honestly, I really didn't expect anything to come of it. IF anything happened, I figured it'd take at least a day to get anything going. So around 1:30 I finally collapsed in bed.

...

By 1:56, I had been timing my contractions for almost 30 minutes, they were 3-6 minutes apart, i'd woken tanner & my parents, and we were headed to the hospital.

By 3am I was admitted and the show was on the road :p

The whole labor itself was not what I expected or had prepared myself for. Initially, the contractions were getting stronger & super uncomfortable (duh), and I had strictly back labor- I never felt a single pain in my tummy. So after a bit, I decided to try to stand up rather than lay on my back on that horrid hospital bed- and that worked WONDERS. The pain went from a 5 to a 2 almost instantly. The contractions were much more manageable, & by 6 cm I was still standing up & going strong with no epidural (which was my plan) :D However, I was dilating super fast ( i'd decided to get the epidural only at the last possible moment, ideally 8 cm) and the doctor told me that if i still wanted to get it, i'd better get it now at 7 cm, because by the time I go to 8 and she made it back to my room to give it to me, I might have already progressed to 9 and then it would be too late for me to have it :/ So in my spine the needle went (which, by the way, was not bad at all- it just felt like someone tugging on my back a bit or something).

I was feeling pretty great until out of NOWHERE, i got these intense, super painful cramps in my left thigh. It was more painful than any of the contractions I'd had before and... I really don't even know how to describe it. The pain was just so ridiculous. The doctor came back in to check me & said I was experiencing leg labor (which i'd never heard of before) and that i'd gone from 8 cm to almost 10 in that past 5 minutes- and that it was time to push!

Pushing, oddly enough, was probably the easiest part of the whole pregnancy/birthing experience. My morning sickness & headaches were worse. I'd always seen on tv these women screaming & straining as they pushed, & having to practice how to do it.

I don't know if it was just me or what, but it was most natural thing ever. I didn't turn beet red from straining so much, I wasn't sweating or crying- I just pushed. They make it out to be so horrible but truly, if you're just calm & determined, it's not bad at all. I pushed for about 20 minutes and then all of a sudden, the nurse was holding my head up off the pillow so I could see over the sheet and I saw the doctor pulling my beautiful baby girl out. Tanner cut the cord (he also helped hold my leg back as I pushed, but i FORBADE him to look down at the queen victoria & what was happening to it) and then they wrapped her up in a blanket and put on her on my chest- which was indescribable. She had been squalling when she came out (obvi), but quieted down immediately upon being put on my chest. I had Tanner there to lean in and hug me & her, and it honestly was one of, if not THE, happiest moment(s) in my life.

The recovery was not bad at all, which also surprised me. I figured i'd be in the hospital a day or two and then bedridden at home for at least a week, if not more. But by the day after delivering her, I was able to walk around fine and 2 days later, was able to move around just as I did before with no problems :)

It's an amazing feeling being a parent. I never knew I could love someone with such an absolute fierce passion. I cry out of happiness all the time just looking at her.

And she's such a good baby. Very content & easygoing, and really only cries when you change her diaper, which she absolutely hates, haha :X

She's added an element of such happiness to our lives that we never knew existed. Tanner is smitten with  her, of course, and she has him wrapped around her little finger :p He's been amazing through this and is such a fantastic father. We call him the baby whisperer because half the time when she's fussy, he can hold her & she instantly settles right down.

Oh- she's awake, and hungry :/

Thus ends this post, but I shall try to update this at least once a week if I can 

:D