And Emma Makes Three...

On Friday, January 11th at 3:40pm we welcomed baby Emma to the Adams family. Some have expressed interest in the "story of her birth" - so I thought I'd capture it in a nutshell here. It all began on Tuesday, January 8th when I experienced the joys of FALSE labor for 6 hours. False labor is a very cruel and unusual joke that is played on pregnant women. Why the useless pain? Anyway, luckily we did not make any trips to the hospital and the contractions went away for two days. They started up again around midnight on Thursday, January 10th. I laid in bed for 2 hours until 2:30am when they started getting more intense. I woke up Greg and he started timing them. As they got more painful and closer together we decided it was time to head to the hospital. We arrived at Banner Desert around 4:30am - I was dilated to a 5 when we arrived and so they placed me straight in the delivery room (after the nurse spilled my blood all over trying to get in my IV). They immediately gave me my epidural (GOD BLESS AMERICA) and life was good again. Amazing that one drug can bring so much happiness. I literally felt nothing from the contractions. Then began the waiting game. Without feeling the pain of contractions, the waiting period was actually quite enjoyable. Greg and I took a nap and then were joined in the delivery room by his parents, my sister and my aunt. We spent most of the day talking and laughing and waiting for that darn cervix to dilate to a 10. I was finally dilated around 12:30pm, but had to wait to start pushing until 1:15 because my doctor was getting a haircut at 1:00pm. Yep - you read that right - my labor was postponed for a haircut. Lovely. Once I started pushing, Greg's dad left the room, but remaining for the labor portion was Greg, my sister, my aunt and Greg's mom. Considering miracle Emma may be my only actual delivery, I wanted to make it memorable for our family. None of the 5 of us present for the labor had ever actually seen a live birth, so needless to say, we were all anxious and excited! I pushed for almost 2 1/2 hours, until our little angel finally came. The last 30 minutes of pushing were slightly more traumatic because my epidural had worn off and I felt everything. I can't complain too much, because it could have been much worse. .. but I must say that it was not the most enjoyable 30 minutes of my life. Emma had swallowed some of her amniotic fluid during the labor, so they had to rush her away to the nursery for almost 2 hours to make sure that they could get all of the liquid out of her little lungs. They gave me a pain medication after labor to help with the recovery - and it knocked me out for a nice nap! Once they moved me up to the recovery floor - we finally got to hold our little Emma. She was absolutely precious and it was so overwhelming to actually have her in our arms after so many years of wishing, hoping and waiting. How grateful we are for her birth and for the miracle that she is.