a year ago today...

I spent most of my day sitting/laying on the couch "killing time" before...uhh...Ryder got here.  Being at home all day everyday for the past month without a baby to take care of, I was pretty caught up on things. I had thrown a roast and some potatoes and carrots in the crock pot that morning for dinner that night, and I needed to vacuum, but most of my day was spent on the couch.  As comfortable & enjoyable as that might sound to some, it wasn't.  I was almost 42 weeks pregnant and miserable in ANY position I tried to lay myself.

Around 3 o'clock I started feeling really tight "pulling" around my stomach.  The tightness would last for about a minute.  I timed the contractions, so you could say, and they were exactly 6 minutes apart.  Every.single.time.  I timed them for about an hour.  My plan had always been to go to the hospital when I was having minute long contractions, 5 minutes apart, and at least for one hour.  6 was pretty darn close...so I called my Dr.'s office to see what they thought I should do since I was about an hour away from the hospital, and I WAS 42 weeks pregnant!  Ha!  They told me I should probably head to the hospital & at least get checked out!

The time was finally here...the day we had been waiting for for.so.long!!  I called Jake and told him he needed to head home because we were going to the hospital!  I called my mom and told her, but told her not to come yet, because we really didn't know what was gonna happen!

I took a shower & got ready, waited on Jake to get home and we headed out!  If we would have known, we would have stopped & eaten dinner on our way to the hospital, because I couldn't eat ANYTHING once I was admitted until after I had Ryder!  

We got checked in as the contractions continued...they didn't hurt at all at this point & my Dr. was luckily on call & came in there to tell us, we wouldn't be leaving without a baby!  YAH!!  I so didn't want this to be a false alarm...

I got my epidural around 11:30, and my Dr. broke my water around 12:30.  I was making very slow progress, as Ryder was the whole pregnancy apparently!  :P   

I was up all night unable to get comfortable...and waiting on SOMETHING to happen!  My lil Punkin' was apparently just as happy as can be in there!

This is actually the only picture I have from that night!  How terrible..?  I know!  Jake isn't one to want OR to let me take pictures...so if I'm not thinking about it, no ones is!  :P  My brother, our friends Hannah & Bentley (who I used to babysit!:P)

(EDIT:  additional belly pic I forgot I had!)
I'll spare you the whole body shot...but I was HU.GE.

...to be continued.