Her story....

So now that we're mostly settled at home, it's only fair that I share Shannon's birth story. Don't worry - I'll leave all the gory parts out!! :-)

On Sunday morning I woke up, went down stairs and felt a bit of a gush. I called OB triage, and they said to come in because my water might have broken (this was new for me, as my water never broke on it's own with the boys). Thankfully, Dave and Tush were down for a visit, so Chris and I jumped in the van and off we went.

We got to the hospital around 9:30a.m., and after being monitored for about 3 hours it was determined that my water had not broken, and that I was only dilated about 3cm. Sooo.... Chris and I decided to walk around and grab some lunch because I had a 'feeling' (yep, a feeling) that something was going to happen.

Well, no sooner had we started walking when the contractions kicked in. I started getting a contraction about every two minutes. We grabbed some lunch (Quiznos to be exact) and then walked back to the hospital. They checked me again, and I was still only 3 cm. Sooo... off we went for another walk (by this time it was about 2:30 or so).

I have to say, it was about 30 degrees outside, and humid. A PERFECT day to be walking around trying to induce labour!! Well, we walked around the hospital (something that would normally take about 15mins), and it took us over an hour because I was doubled over with contractions every two minutes. So back we went, they checked me and I was 4-5 cm.

Now things moved pretty fast. I was sent to the labour and delivery room, and at about 5:00 they tried to administer the epidural. Try number one was unsuccessful, try number two resulted in them tapping some spinal fluid and creating a hole. Try number three was a success, but by this time they were paranoid so they over doped me and I had ZERO feeling below the chest. It was a very strange and disconcerting experience.

The nurse checked me and started to laugh because Shannon was right there and ready to go - I had no clue because I couldn't feel anything. So, a couple of pushes later and our gorgeous girl was born, kicking, screaming, and continuing the James kids tradition - pooping right away!!

Unfortunately for me, the botched epidural means that I have headaches, and an extremely stiff and painful neck and back. They tried to do a blood patch the next day (taking blood from my arm and injecting it into the site of the epidural to try to clot the hole), but it didn't take. So, we're going to try to wait it out, and hopefully it will heal on it's own within 5 - 10 days. For now, copious amounts of Advil and Tylenol are this girl's best friend!

Shannon is doing great at home, and is feeding like a champ. We're going to the Dr. today so we'll see how much weight she's been able to put back on. Hopefully she'll carry on Aidan's tradition of porking up like the Pillsbury dough boy!

That's it for now - of course, I have to share another picture of our beautiful girl!!