38w Appt & Birth Story

I can't believe this is the first opportunity I've had to write my birth story...It goes like this...

So my 38w appt was scheduled for Wednesday at 37w6d. I was 2.5cm but she said she could "stretch" me to 3cm and about 85% effaced. She offered to strip my membranes...so I said "sure." Well that was NO picnic. It hurt like HELL! The cramping was horrible and it made the poor baby go crazy in there too. I started (read continued) contracting during the rest of my appt and she told me if it continued or got worse to come to the hospital. I expected that nothing would happen because that would be just my luck.
When I got home, I was exhausted and still having horrible contracting as well as a bloody show. So I took two tylenol and went to sleep for a couple hours. As suspected, the contractions had pretty much stopped. So I got up, fixed dinner (Wednesday is David's day to work 7:30-4p and 6p-10p). Being on my feet fixing dinner was enough to kick start contractions again. They were intense but irregular so I fed Dave, sent him to work, and figured, he's only a few minutes away if I decide this is "for real." So I showered, and finished packing the hospital bag, just in case. By the time he got home around 10:30p, I was MISERABLE! I was contracting every 7-10m and they hurt like an SOB.
Being that I'd been contracting for 5w now, I text my friend that works in L&D and told her what was going on--and that I wasn't coming in unless I could leave with a baby in my arms. She said to wait until I was contracting every 3-5 minutes. Well, within 30 minutes my contractions jumped to every 3-4 minutes and they were pretty painful. So I called the answering service and it just so happened that MY doctor was on call that night! I was SO happy :-) She said, this sounds like "it" so why don't ya come in and I'll check you.
So about 1:00am we headed to the hospital. When I got there, I was 3cm and 85% effaced and still contracting quite regularly. My doctor said--I'm keeping ya! WHOO HOO! We were having a baby! :-) So I was on the monitor all night and my contractions actually spaced out quite a bit and became MUCH less painful. She went ahead and broke my water at 7:30am though. I had sent David home at 7am to feed the doggies and to get himself some starbucks b/c he was sooo tired!
At 7:30a I called him crying b/c I was scared and I wanted him there with me. My contractions had gotten instantly more intense and were coming much closer together. I was still doing GREAT at that point w/o anything for pain. I really thought I was going to be able to have the natural delivery I had always dreamed of having. At 7:45 he walked in and at 8a she started my Pitocin at a very low dose! Well by 8:10 I was in a lot of pain because my contractions had moved from my belly to my back. I was breathing through EVERY ONE of them and getting very uncomfortable. The nurse offered me a dose of nubain to take the edge off--after some coaxing by David, I said okay. The nubain didn't do much for my pain but it made me feel very very loopy and dizzy. By 9am I was in tears. My contractions were every 3minutes but lasting for 2min and were hitting the high 80's low 90's on the monitor. At 9:15 I asked for more pain meds--and she said I couldn't have anything else until 10am. I so I said, how about an epidural! She said I couldn't get that until 10am either--because they had to run in a liter of IV fluids. SOoo...
For another 45m David held my hand and I continued to breath through my contractions. I can honestly say that I fell more in love with David as the labor went on. He did a great job keeping me calm and trying to support me through every single contraction. Every time I said I couldn't do it anymore, he was there telling me I could. It was amazing. At 10am my hero--otherwise known as the epidural man--came to my rescue! I was terrified of getting an epidural but I knew that my body couldn't do what it needed to if I was tense and unable to relax. Let me tell you, that was the most wonderful experience of my life! I didn't feel anything other than a little pressure when he was inserting the catheter and the "jolt" down my leg that he told me I'd feel. Even when I told him I had a spot that wasn't numb, he gave me extra juice (once my BP came back up) and everything was numb. It was fabulous.
The nurse checked me as soon as he was finished (about 10:30-10:45) and I was 5cm, 100%. Then I slept. I slept for about 90min. My OB came in at 12:15 and said she had to go do a d&c down in OR and wanted to make sure I was doing okay before she left. Things moved quite quickly from there.
As soon as she stuck her hand down there, she felt the baby's head--he was crowning. I NEVER felt a thing--no urge to push, no pressure no nothing! Dangerous, but not anyone's fault. I had the lowest dose epidural I could have and the nurses did nothing wrong by not checking me for that hour and a half! She asked me to do a "test" push to see if I could push effectively with my epidural on--after about 2 seconds of my push, she yelled STOP!!!! A rush of people came in, a cart came in and I started pushing. I pushed through 3 contractions and our beautiful son was born :-) It was the most amazing thing ever! I delivered Bryson Allen Yost at 12:25pm on October 1st--at 38w exactly! He was 7lbs 8.2oz; 18.25inches long.
Unfortunately because he came so quickly, I got a 4th degree tear down to the muscle from my vag to my rectum. She stitched me for over an hour! THANK GOD I HAD THAT EPIDURAL!!!
Everything from there on is a blur...other than walking to the bathroom around 5:30 and passing out sitting on the toilet from blood loss and pain meds :-)

I gained a total of 21lbs and was down to 135lbs the day after delivery!! I love it--too bad none of my clothes fit my "new" body though. I guess I'll need to work on that!
That's all for now, my little guy is awake and needing a bottle!