This may be too much information...

for some. But I know that there are some folks that want to hear our labor and delivery story, so here it is. I promise it's not too graphic, but if you get queasy talking about being dilated and pushing, maybe you should stop reading right here and catch us at our next post :).

Thursday my OB told me I was 3cm dilated and she stripped my membranes. Friday morning my contractions started at 7 am and stayed exactly 7 minutes apart ALL DAY. They were painful and lasting about a minute or more. At 4:30 pm I got up to go to the bathroom, and I had a contraction that almost brought me to me knees. I knew. I looked at Mark and said let's go. By the time we got in the car it was 5 and we were headed to the Madsons to drop off Markus. The contractions had become 4 minutes apart, and by the time we hit DuPont-Steilacoom road they were lasting 2 minutes. We decided to go straight to the hospital, not knowing what the traffic would be like on a rainy Friday evening on I-5, and asked Randy and Beckie to meet us there. The Lord completely opened up traffic on our way. There was a bunch of cars on the road, but it seemed like he just gave us a clear path. We arrived at the hospital, released Markus unto Auntie Beckie and Uncle Rando's awesome hands and headed in. They checked me pretty quickly, as they didn't have to enter any of my info or anything because I had been a frequent flier there anyways. I was only at a 4. They asked me if I was going to be wanting an epidural- um, yeah. They told me everyone was there having a baby that night (in fact, the nurse that checked me was dressed for dinner as she had been called in because they were so busy) so she said they would send in the anesthesiologist whenever she was available. She showed up about 40 minutes later, so I got the epidural sooner than I wanted, but they told me I shouldn't take my chances. Of course, I slowed down at that point. At 8pm I was still only a 4, so they started Pitocin. Meanwhile, we met the doctor, the resident and the fellow that were all going to be a part of my delivery (do we really need all those people?). At 11, I was only at a 6. I was bummed. A little over an hour later the doctor came in to break my water. Oops! It was already broken, and I was almost complete. The nurse came in a bit later, checked me, and I was complete. Halle was only at a +1, so the nurse just said, let's do a couple pushes just to make sure you remember what to do. She will probably take a little bit. So I pushed twice, then her heartbeat came off the monitor. So the nurse rolled me on my side and was trying for awhile to find her again. The whole doctor team showed up for the report, and the nurse said she was only at +1 station and would probably be a bit. The doctor says, once you get the heartbeat back let's get her pushing again. The nurse found her heartbeat, and they lifted up one of my legs so I could get on my back and start pushing again. That's when all three docs and the nurse told me not to move and not to push, because her head was coming out. No one was ready. The fellow quickly got gowned and gloved, they removed the bottom of the bed and I barely pushed and out she came. That was it. Pretty amazing. It happened so fast, which was such a blessing because by this point my body was really reacting to the epidural and my entire upper body was shaking uncontrollably- hard to focus on pushing when your arms are shaking and your teeth are chattering. They immediately put her right on my chest and let her stay there with me for 35 minutes. It was heaven, and she never even cried because she was so content there.

And that's the story of how little Halle Joy entered the world. It was such a blessing to have my mom there with us to experience her birth. God gave us wonderful nurses and doctors and we were so thankful!