SHE IS HERE!!

Willa Grace Joyner arrived at 11:39pm on Wednesday November 17.  She weighed in at 7 lbs. 19 inches and is beautiful and healthy!

This is how it all went down...

Wednesday morning I woke up at 3:30am with really painful contractions that continued to get stronger until 6am but they didn't have any rhythm to them.  So I got into the shower to try and relieve some of the back pain but nothing was helping.  That morning I told Dave that something was up.  I wasn't sure I was in labor but I knew we were getting close and that I was in a lot of pain.  By 11:30am I was still contracting but not able to time them, so I called my nurse Leslie and she suggested I come into the office at 1:30pm to get on the fetal monitor and check on the baby and myself.

Dave came with me to the office but I genuinely thought they were going to tell me that I was not in labor and that I needed to come back when the contractions were closer together.  BUT instead they put me on the monitor and I had several contractions within 15 mins, so Leslie called Dr. Doke in to check me and see if there was any progress since my last appointment.  He said I was at a 3 (I had been at a 2) and that I was in the beginning stages of labor.  Then he said we could go ahead and get admitted if they had room over in Labor and Delivery, which they did, so instead of going home we walked across the hall and got into bed!!!

This was a huge relief because I couldn't take much more of the contractions at such a slow pace.  After they got me into the bed we got to make the fun phone calls to our families that we were in labor!  We had left Fay at home napping with Pauline and my mom went over to the house to be with her.  In the meantime I went from a 3-4 in an hour on my own, so we were definitely rolling.  At 4pm Dr. Doke broke my water, at 5pm they started me on the pitocin, and by 8:30pm I had my epidural, at this point I was only a 5.5 and Dr. Doke told us it would probably be a long night and to settle in.

Our nurse Michelle thought that it would be before midnight but either way we decided to relax and I took a SHORT nap before I awoke to pressure.  I called Michelle and told her that I thought I needed to push...she checked me and I was fully dilated and the head was visible.  So, she got the whole room ready for delivery and then asked me to do a practice push, which went VERY well, and she had to tell me to stop, put my legs together, and try not to push or otherwise we were going to have this baby without a doctor!  It took Dr. Doke about 15 mins to get into the room and 2 pushes later Willa was in my arms.

This time I had no issues with the catheter, I remember everything about the birth, I didn't feel a thing, and I didn't shake at all!  It was a great labor and delivery.  After she was born we had about an hour in the delivery room just the 3 of us and then they took her to the nursery and we got settled into room 208. It was about 3am when we had our last check up and were ready to sleep.  Willa slept in the nursery that night and got to meet Pops (my dad) at 7am before he flew out to see aunt Amy and pick up our new car!  The rest of our stay was uneventful and we were released on Friday, November 19th and Laura and Jason brought us dinner from Murray's.  She slept 5 hours the first night!

Willa has been a joy and we have seen no signs of PPD!