Well after my doctor's appointment on Monday I started having contractions that continually lasted all day long. I called my doctor's office around 3 and told them that I'd been having contractions 5 minutes apart for the past 5 hours so they told me to head over to labor and delivery. Once we got there they saw I was dilated to a four and decided to admit me then they gave me my epidural (I don't understand how women DON'T get the meds) and we just waited to dilate more.

Well - I dilated just about a centimeter and hour so around 12:30 a.m. I was 9 cm; however, for the following 4 hours I just would NOT dilate any more. Some little piece of cervix was hanging around there that wouldn't let me dilate any farther. I was getting quite frustrated, not to mention beyond exhausted and finally at around 5:30 I reached a 10 and I was finally able to get to the pushing point.

I pushed for 3 hours straight but she was just way too big be able to make her way all the way out. We pushed from EVERY angle and her head and all her hair was visible but she just couldn't get all they way down because the doctor thought her shoulders might be stuck. So at 8:30 a.m. I just could NOT push any more. I was literally falling asleep between contractions I was so exhausted and then waking up to push again once another one came on. The doctor said she looked like she was just too big -- none of us had predicted she would be as big as she was -- and especially too big for the size of my body.

I was nearly dead with exhaustion when they wheeled me into the OR for a C-section. They draped me and then proceeded to pull her out. Again, they did not realize how big she was for my body and they literally were pushing on every area of my upper body to get her out. Eventually they had to use a vacuum on her head and she finally made her appearance! She was 8lb 13 ounces (ironically the same weight as me when I was born) and was so swollen from being in the birth canal for so long and then being vacuumed out.

Her swelling has since gone down (no luck for mom though - she is beyond swollen all over) and she is the most beautiful baby! She only cries when she needs something and already loves the boys. She loves to just be held by them so she can just stare at them with her blue eyes.

We should be able to leave the hospital tomorrow as I am healing much quicker than they thought. My belly hurts from my incision and my lower parts are still tender (I have the pains of a woman who delivered vaginally AND a woman who had a C-Section) but I'm able to walk around and only really have pain if I move wrong. So----we've made a cute slide show of pictures of our beautiful baby girl. She took a long time getting here (17 long hours), but we already can't imagine life without her.