a birth story, abridged

i can now see my feet but cant get to these raggely half painted toenails due to the un expected c-section incision.

i had been feeling like a fairly worthless lump, tired and sitting on the couch surfing the net for the good portion of a week, pretty much only leaving the house to pick up Dominic from school. telling my un born child to come on already by trying to will him out of my womb.

my MIL called from Indy to see how i was doing and told me she would come visit me the next day and we could go out to eat and do a little light shopping ( Madison indiana has no serious shopping).

saturday afternoon we all headed out to Bob Evans, a favorite of the ritchie family, theres pancakes and bacon there. lots of bacon.

and i started feeling a little contracting. just a little, so i figured no problem we could go shopping, after all i had been having false labor for a week.

we shopped for maybe 20-30 minutes before i decided that it was a little different than what i had been feeling. this was the real deal.

so thats sauturday afternoon at 4:30.

around 7:30 we decided that it would be a good idea to go ahead and go to the hospital, where i was met in ther ER reception area by a young lady from our church family who is an ER nurse, they sent me upstairs to labor and delivery and got me set up with my wonderful nurse Jennifer.

at this point i figured, hmm, 7:30 now, if Dominics birth was any indication of how this is going to go i should be out of here and sleeping soundly by no later than 1 am.

let me just say that Dominics birth was NO indication of how this was going to go.

by 1 am i had made it to 7 cm. and stayed for the next 19 hours at 7 cm. now, i already had my epidural so pain was not really a problem (excellent anesthesiologist at Kings Daughters Hospital, just for the record) but i was getting tired, and i was quite sick to my stomach (yay for vomit bags). so long story shorter, although neither me or Baby miles was under any distress the Dr finally convinced me that the best way to get this baby out was going to be a c-section, i didnt want a c-section, but i really didnt want to labor for 24 more hours ...and then have to get a c-section anyway.

so after 28 hours of labor i was tired, i just wanted sleep, they fixed me up for surgery while i was mostly half asleep, delivered Miles while i was pretty much asleep. i opened my eyes when they said "look , Monica, its your baby boy" and held him up for me to see...then i went back to sleep, i figured Ken could take it from there.