Hi everyone, Finally got a chance to check in and to my surprise this board got wierd. Welcome to all the other new arrivals. Now, for my birth story. It was so totally different, but perfect anyways. On Monday, April 13th, at 4 a.m. I found bloody show, and started feeling mild contractions. At the time they didn't feel mild but compared to later on... Waited till 9 and called the OB, who told me to come in to the hospital. We took our time. I showered, and got cleaned up first. The OB checked on me throughout the a.m. then, sent me home. I continued to have contractions that were 5-10 minutes apart. At 8 p.m., the contractions got really really intense, but the OB said not to come back unless they were 5 minutes apart for 2 hours. He planned on inducing me on Wednesday. So, finally at 3 a.m. the pain level hit new heights. But at least the contractions were 5 minutes apart. Called the OB at 5:30, he told me to come in. When I got to the hospital, I was in such pain, that the woman who swore that she would do this drug free was saying---give me an epidural...NOW. As soon as I got it--blessed relief. I would not have made it much longer without some relief. They found that I was 3 centimters dialated so they also gave me a pitocin drip. The OB kept worrying about how big she was... so at 4 p.m. he decided that since I was only 7 centimeters dialated that I must be having a baby that was to big to come out so he arranged to have a c-section at 5. At 5:49 Rachel Elisabeth Straiton made her glorious entrance into the world. She had some melinconin (sp?) so they had to really work on her to clean her up. It seemed forever to get to see her. She has a ton of hair. And the most beautiful face ever. She weighed in at 10 pounds 7.2 ounces. She was 22 1/4" long. And immediately was taken for her to be checked out at the nursery. I had to wait until 10:30 that night to finally hold her and get to nurse. WOW..what an incredible feeling. It seems so amazing to think that she is such a miracle. She is really strong too. Little bugger pulled out mommy's IV the next morning. I didn't much miss having that anyways but the epidural was a nice constant source of pain relief. Pain pills worked...just had to keep asking the nurse for them-they would forget. We came home on Friday. Word of Warning to everyone not home yet. Come home to a quiet house. We left kinda late at the hospital and missed a feeding about by an hour. When we got home, with the kids, dogs, etc. it was overly stimulating to her and she quit feeding. My hormones went crazy and it took the help of the lactaction consultant at the hospital to calm me down that I wasn't starving my baby. It took several days to get her back to even taking my breast. We had to send the step kids away to calm her and I down. Now she is feeding like a pro. I am so lucky that my mom has been coming over every day and doing the cleaning, cooking and taking care of me and the baby. This mommy thing is the best job in the whole world. I want to thank everyone here for all the support I got throughout this whole wonderful miraculous experience. Look for you over in the playgroup. KAS and Rachel