The birth story... read at your own risk (it's not that bad)

June 17th: Our 3-year anniversary. I think my water broke, but I'm not sure. Josh comes home from work early in case he needs to take me to the hospital.

June 18th: 3 AM. I really think my water could have broken. It's so frustrating not to be able to know for sure! It was a small leak if anything. We drive down to the hospital and they admit me to labor and delivery. They test for amniotic fluid but the results are negative.

June 22nd: Josh is at work and it's late morning. I still think my water has broken so I call the doctor. They say to come in. My doctor is out of town so I go to another doctor in the same office. She does a different test and it is positive for amniotic fluid meaning my water is broken! It's not 100% but she tells me to go up to labor and delivery because they will most likely deliver the baby that day! I knew I should have brought our bag for the hospital!

Early that afternoon: Josh comes to the hospital. They do a test called amnisure which is very accurate. The results came back quickly saying that my water had broken!

About 4 PM: They start the Pitocin to induce me. It's not what I wanted. I would have preferred to go into labor on my own, but with the risk of infection with my water broken, it was best to have the baby sooner than later. Josh leaves to get the dog situated, get cleaned up and grab our bag.

About 5 PM: Josh comes back. The contractions are really strong! I can hardly move without another contraction starting! It was impossible to get comfortable or have a moment to relax.

About 9:30 PM: Contractions have been getting stronger and stronger, but I'm still only dilated to 3 cm! I know I need to relax and I'm in a ton of pain, but I was worried an epidural would prolong things since I wasn't that far along. I had pictured being able to get up and move around during labor but because of the nonstop contractions and having the fetal monitor on because of the pitocin, I was constrained to one spot. I had had enough though and decided to get an epidural.

About 10:30 PM: Dilated to 5.5 cm. The epidural took about 30 minutes to kick in, but once it did, I felt great! I could finally move and relax. I could still feel the contractions but they weren't painful.

About 11:30 PM: 10 CM dilated! Yes! I really felt the urge to push at this point. The nurses had me wait an hour before pushing. They thought that I would be pushing for a while, so they waited until the end of that hour to call the doctor. I thought they were crazy! For some reason, I didn't think I would be pushing that long.

June 23rd about 12:30 PM: Luckily, the doctor was already there for another delivery. They finally let me start pushing. After 4 pushes he was crowning! They went and got the doctor and 1 1/2 pushes later Talon was born! It was so unreal when I first saw Talon. I couldn't believe he was mine! He arrived at 1:03 AM. They put him on the scale and it said 9 lbs and 5 oz!

I couldn't believe he was so big and he fit inside me. We were all thinking he'd be around 7 lbs. Even thought things didn't go how I expected them to go it ended up being perfect and I feel really lucky that everything went so well and quick! I'm so lucky to have such a cute sweet boy and I'm glad he decided to be a part of our family.