Awwww . . .

Wow. It's been five days.

She's so cute. I joked with a lot of people that I was scared I'd have an ugly baby. No way.

Things got underway on Thursday. I was supposed to go in to the hospital so they could administer some gel to get my cervix to ripen. They wanted to do a dose in the afternoon, send me home, then another one in the evening, and then start the Pitocin Friday morning. Ha! Fat chance. After the first dose, I started having contractions, and after watching for an hour or so, they said I wasn't going anywhere. Things progressed pretty quickly, and my contractions were coming so strong and long they actually had to give me something to slow them down, since the baby wasn't taking them very well.

I think I had kind of hoped I wouldn't have to have an epidural, just to be tough. But man oh man, the guy that put it in was one of my favorite people. I was a lot happier after he came to visit.

I started pushing at 1 in the morning on Friday, and she was here 40 minutes later. I didn't get to see much of her, since she'd inhaled a lot of fluid and was whisked away to the NICU. They brought her back a couple of hours later with an IV in her head--poor baby! But she's doing fine, sleeping well and looking cute. I love it when she smiles in her sleep. She has a head full of black hair that's fun to play with.