A baby story...part 1

Hello everyone! It sure has been a while!!! I hope all my readers/fellow bloggers are doing well.

I have been very busy with Jordan and my mom who was here for 3-weeks took control of my laptop :-). I guess she figured I had enough on my hands.

In anycase, without further ado, here's my birthing story.

On Monday, November 5th, I had my regular weekly appointment. Prior to that, I had an appointment the Friday before and at my OB's suggestion, I started taking raspberry tea leaf. During that appointment, the OB said I was not effaced at all and also not dilated. Hence the suggestion to start drinking the tea.

After I left the appointment, I went to the organic food store and picked up a few boxes of the tea. Figuring I'd need a lot to get things moving. I started on the tea around 4pm that evening and by the time J got home from his grad school classes, I was having contractions! Granted, they were random so I didn't really do much timing at that point.
The contractions continued on through the weekend and by Monday, I went in for my next appointment. I thought I had lost my mucus plug and the doctor decided to check. She said it was indeed my plug and that I was 80% effaced and 1cm dilated. Of course, that got things moving. She asked if she could strip my membrane so I could make more progress and I said that was OK.
My contractions got more frequent from there and kept on coming.

I went to work on Tuesday to finish up lose ends and also just to pack up the items I left on my desk. I remember actually being on a telecon and having contractions. I had tears in my eyes and of course, my boss chose that moment to walk in on me. She asked me to go home and I said I just wanted to get through a few more things first.

Tuesday night, the contractions got more intense. On Wednesday morning (11/7/12), I called the doctor's office to say that I thought my water had broken. I was told to go to the hospital and she'd call it in. I packed my bags and went to the hospital. I thought for sure they'd send me home but I was told when I got there that my water hadn't broken. Whomp...whomp!!! However, I was already 3cm dilated and would be having the baby that day! I was admitted at 11:30am and was told I won't be allowed to eat anything until the baby arrived.

I won't bore you with all the details of how I spent the next 10-hours. However, my mother in law left work and came directly to the hospital as did my father in law. My mother in law was awesome! When my mom and J went to get something to eat, she stayed with me and gave me back rubs through my contractions. I will never forget that because she truly treated me like she would her own daughter!

I'll stop here for now but here are some pictures of our little Jordan...aka JOE (her initials).