Twas the Night before Emma when all through the house...

Here's a picture of what I looked like 4 years ago today! I was such a lucky prego gal! I had absolutely NO sickness and I was very active all through my pregnancy (even if it doesn't look like it here!) I gained a whopping 20 pounds and didn't gain the last couple of pounds until my final week. Lucky for me I didn't crave sweets at all....I wanted watermelon! It was rather difficult finding watermelon in January!

Here was a little note I wrote upon returning home after giving birth.

I was not expecting you for another week or two…you came to us eight days early. It was 12:30 am Wednesday morning, Daddy and I had just gone to bed not an hour earlier. I got up to make a usual bathroom break…to my surprise my water had broke while I was using the bathroom. I called into your Daddy letting him know what had happened. So many thoughts went through my head. I was rather unprepared for this day! I had nothing packed and was so frightened of the whole labor and delivery process. We called the doctor he told us not to come to the hospital until contractions were stronger and closer together. If the contractions did not become closer together by 7:00 am he wanted us to come to the hospital. I thought ok, I will pack just in case because at that time I was not feeling any pain! After we got everything together for the hospital the contractions started coming on stronger and closer together. We started at 18 minutes apart, then 9, 5, 4, and 3 in a matter of two hours. It was now time to head to the hospital. Daddy said that if I wanted a shower I better get it! I went ahead and did that then we were off to Martha Jefferson Hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 4:00 am. We went straight to the delivery ward and got settled in our room. Contractions were coming very rapidly and they were beginning to become more and more painful. I came into the hospital dilated 2 centimeters. By the time we got to 4 centimeters the pain was too much for me to handle any longer. It really was the worse pain I had ever felt….unlike any other in my life! I was in back labor…very excruciating. So around 9:00 I received my epidural. The epidural itself was not very fun…but I enjoyed how it got rid of the pain of each contraction. After the epidural I had a smile on my face and felt ready to face what lied ahead. My contractions slowed down due to the epidural so I had to be put on petocin. The petocin made my blood pressure go down and your heart race faster so we had to go off of that. Finally at around 2:45, the time had arrived to begin pushing. I pushed and pushed…I didn’t think you were every going to come out! After about an hour and twenty minutes you were born into this world at 4:04 PM. I just held on tight to you and began crying. You were absolutely PERFECT! They allowed you to lay on top of me for quite sometime before they took you off to weigh you and take your measurements and do all those newborn tests!!! Your Daddy and I just stared at you once they brought you back to us!

I seriously can't believe my little angel face is going to be four tomorrow. It is amazing how quickly time does fly once having children. I never in a million years thought I could instantly love another human being the way I love this little girl! I am truly blessed!