So off to the hospital we go. Lucky us we know the nurse (when I say lucky I mean it!). Berdette is the most wonderful woman! She was working that day and really helped us feel at ease with everything. She even made sure she was on call for Friday morning and we were blessed to have her assistance with Cash’s birth. The best part is her & I (and her husband & Brad) are all friends, meaning we text regularly so instead of a call she just kept in contact with me all day and let me know when my room was ready. We checked into the hospital at 4:15. It should be noted that my final weight was (gasp) 185lbs, sadly this was about 10 more than I planned on gaining but hey will just make the losing that much more challenging/fun for the wedding. After paperwork and some joking with Berdette she gave me the first dose of Cytotec around 5pm. Let the fun begin… I had to stay in bed until the medicine kicked in, shortly after Berdette left for the night and so did Dr. Austin. At 8 they let me do some walking laps around the hospital, this is when contractions started and they really restricted where we could walk poor Brad just wanted to watch Basketball (which was only on the waiting room TV) so I left him standing and kept walking in circles. At 8:30 my contractions got very strong (back to bed I went) and they also started to come very close together. My mom also arrived!! Thank goodness she was able to make it!  It was then that we had a first scary moment. The monitors were showing Cash was stressed and his oxygen kept dropping with the contractions being that they were less than 2 minutes apart now.Two nurses rushed in and gave me oxygen and a shot to stop my labor. What the heck? I’m here to start it? I know Brad and I both had the same look of panic. He was planning on leaving to get some work done and now he wasn’t so sure. But after an hour we were all better, my labor wasn’t stopped, just a little slower. Brad went home to rest some and mom stayed with me. At 11:30 Ellen (my night nurse) came in and inserted my second dose of Cytotec. So here we go again! Gosh those contractions get strong. The later it got the more I wanted to just get sleep. But between getting up to go to the bathroom every 15 minutes or so (sorry if that’s tmi but hey it happened and I’ve been told it’s a sure sign you’re in labor), my mom able to sleep beside me and super strong contractions sleep wasn’t happening. At 1:10 Ellen came back in to ask if I wanted the epidural. I told her I wanted to wait and I’d let her know Ha Ha… I tried to be tough… It was exactly 15 agonizing clock-watching minutes later that I pressed the nurse call button and said yep I want the epidural now! Dr. Mitzel gave me the epidural, he was so nice. I think it also helped that Berdette told him ahead of time to be nice to me 🙂 It was in by 2am and by 2:15 I was feeling great. The only downside is I’m now stuck in the bed until baby boy arrives. At 2:30am Ellen came back to check on me, I was dilated to a 3 and 100% effaced (all I could think was now we’re moving!). From there things really started to progress at 4:30 I was at 4 at 5:40 I was at a 6 and he had dropped so we were just waiting for my water to break. Mom texted Brad around 6:30 since I was then at a 7 and getting very close. The nurses changed shifts (yay Berdette was back), Brad arrived (good thing cause I was getting nervous feeling the pressure and being told it could be very soon), and so did Wendy. More waiting and checking. Dr. Austin came in to break my water (around 9 I believe) since I was dilated to a 9 and just a small part of his head was still covered by my cervix. Stubborn kid/my body really tried to keep him in. I was pushing for just over an hour, thank goodness we had Berdette she is not only great at her job but she was so honest with us the whole time. We then had our 2nd scary moment(s). I was running a fever and they were starting to be concerned with infection for both me and the lil guy. So more pushing and boy was I crossing my fingers that he would come out soon so we could all avoid a c-section. Finally Dr. Austin is called back in. Of course he was face up so she had to turn him. After all of this our beautiful baby was born at 11:42am. Brad cut the cord and then stayed with him taking pictures and telling me what was happening while Dr. Austin stitched me up (Only a couple stitches cause she’s a perfectionist haha). They gave me a round of antibiotics and my fever went subsided. Apparently the infection left my body with the placenta woo hoo. What a blessing that we both were just fine and we now have a very healthy boy.