Jacob's very beginning

Jacob Aiden Junho was born on March 1, 2010 at 4:13 pm. He was a week early. However, a planned week early, for the most part.
I had a great pregnancy. I never once got morning sickness, though I have to admit, I did get slightly nauseous at work a few times, but I was surrounded by food, so it was going to happen. I never swelled, or had a horrendously sore back. I only gained 18 pounds. It was basically smooth sailing. I was lucky.
He was a super active baby, constantly moving around to make his presence known. It definitely shows today that his personality started out in the fetal stages.

The day Jacob was born, it was snowing. A thin layer of snow coated the streets and the houses, as we drove to the hospital. I was happy. Snow was a good sign for me. It made me think of rebirth. Fitting for the days agenda.

We got the hospital at 6 am. Checked in and they prepped me up. I wanted a natural delivery, no medicine to interfere with what my body was naturally equipped to do. I was already 5 cm dialated when my doctor checked me. My water hadn't broke yet, so they decided to break it, to get things moving along. That was an interesting feeling; like a giant pimple inside me. I started walking the halls to get my labor to progress. Unfortunately, two hours later, I hadn't started contracting enough, and my doctor wanted me to start pitocin.
For those who don't know what that is, pitocin is a natural occurring hormone in women's bodies that stimulate labor. They can synthetically clone this hormone and give it to pregnant women intravenously, to progress labor.

Let's just say after that, there was no going back. The pitocin only took 20 minutes to kick in full raging contractions. I went from having contractions five minutes apart, to two minutes, and within an half an hour, 1 minute or less apart. I didn't want an epidural, but I caved when my dialation still hadn't progressed after two hours of these types of contractions. My uterus was taking over my entire body, and I didn't have time to refocus between each contraction because they were so close together. So I got the epidural. It was bliss once I laid down on the bed, but twenty minutes later, I was 10 cm, and it was time to push.

This is where I decided the epidural was worth it. I was heartbroken when I dialated so fast after receiving the epidural. I will always wonder if I would have waited just a bit longer if I could have made it. But the epidural allowed me to enjoy the final moments of being pregnant and in labor. I started pushing, and within minutes, his head was out. I pushed a total of ten times. He was a champ. The next thing I new, my baby was on my chest, crying, and oh my was he beautiful.

Jacob weighed in at 7 lbs 1 oz and 20 inches long. His apgar test was a 9. He was perfect in every way. I was a very proud mama.