He's Heeeeere!!

Elijah Lee Eagle is finally here!! Friday didn't see much progress with what they had given me, but Saturday morning things skyrocketed in the right direction! :) He arrived without any complications at 12:27 on Saturday, 8/4/2012, weighing 8lbs, 13oz, and 20.5 inches long. He is the CUTEST baby in the world!

((Ignore this part if you don't want to know too much about me))
After being in the hospital since Thursday night at midnight, I finally started progressing on Saturday (aka Friday was a loooong, uneventful day!). My labor wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared. I got an epidural (which SUPER hurt to get put in!!) and they started pitocin at around 5-5:30am on Saturday, when I was less than 2cm dilated. The epidural was the most amazing thing ever, and I was able to sleep through my contractions finally. They were pretty bad, and about 2 minutes apart at that point. I don't remember the exact times they checked me after that, but I quickly got to 5-6 cm, then at around 10:30 I was at 8cm and they wanted me to start "practice pushing" at 11-11:15ish. Pushing was not easy, even though I couldn't feel much, because I was already exhausted. And every time the doctor said "I can see his head! He has lots of hair!" I got freaked out. Haha. While definitely a miracle, the thought of the head coming out is not something I want to think about often! Then the doctor said "Okay, who has blonde hair??" and that REALLY freaked me out. My baby is a blondie??! Then around noon the nurse and J were talking about when they thought he was going to come out. J said around 12:30, and the nurse said "I'm thinking more like 12:42." All I could think about was "45 MORE MINUTES OF PUSHING???!!!!?!" So I pushed harder. When the doctor came in, she said her guess was 12:27. And what do ya know! She's obviously very experienced with this. :) J's guess was practically spot on, too! Despite me thinking he wouldn't want to, he watched the whole thing happen. Which I think is gross, but it's his eyes! When Elijah finally came out, it was the weirdest feeling in the entire world. Like this slimy alien just sliding out of my body. When Elijah came out, he didn't cry at first, just started looking around at everything. They put him in this incubator thing to clean him up, and then he started crying the sweetest little cry in the world. He's not a very loud crier, and that made me start bawling. I still can't believe we made a baby! The placenta came out almost right after baby did, same weird slimy feeling, and I only had one small tear. They put Elijah on me and all I could do was stare at him... the drugs I was on made my body start shaking, so I gave little man to J to let them bond for a little, and begged the nurses for food. Luckily it wasn't too late for lunch! Halfway through eating, I threw it all up (I kept saying the whole time I was pushing that I was going to vomit!), but luckily it was only HALFway through, so I could still finish the rest. :P We got to spend an hour with him, just the 3 of us (and the nurse that bathed him and made sure everything checked out okay). Then we moved to our recovery room where both of our families were waiting to meet our little wonderman. Childbirth is a crazy experience.

I wasn't feeling too bad initially, but once the drugs wore off I was pretty sore. Recovery hasn't been as bad as I thought it'd be, either! My back hurts pretty bad where they put the epidural, and my tailbone hurts from the pushing, but I'm doing great! It takes me a little bit to get going when I've been sitting for a while, but once I'm up, I'm okay. I got to take a long shower today, and that was AMAZING! J is at work today, so it's just me and little man until he gets off and we go home. But they've got a lot of things to do with us/talk to us about since we're going home today. I am super excited to take Elijah home and have him all to ourselves (and not be constantly interrupted by the nurses who have to keep checking on me and baby, even though we've both been nothing but perfect!), and to show him all of his cool stuff that everyone got him. But I'm definitely nervous about not having anyone to help me at the push of a button (like get me ice water, bring me food, and tell me how good of a job I'm doing). We'll manage, though. :)

Overall, I had a pretty easy pregnancy (though it was LONG), a pretty easy delivery, and a very happy, healthy baby boy. We are VERY blessed, and I am so thankful that everything has turned out like it has. Despite all of this, it's not something I want to do again any time soon, so please, no talk of #2.

I couldn't add pics from the hospital, so here they are now:

 this was the announcement on my work's homepage :)

I can't get enough of his cute little body and squishy cheeks!!! I always thought people were weird when they talked about wanting to "eat" their babies. But now I understand!!! I want to just eat his cheeks and hands and feet and belly and..... you get the picture :) :)