Heidi Renae Gross

Brian and I are so excited of our new addition to the family. We are blessed with a baby girl on April 15th, 2009. She was born at 1:54am and she was 6lbs 12 oz. The last blog was the night we went to the hospital. It was funny when the future daddy came home from work that night. Brian came home around 6pm and he saw me on the recliner in pain. I told him that I was starting to time these "moderate to sharp" pains in my lower abdomen every 10-15 minutes because they seemed to happen more frequent today. His eyes went huge and I think he stopped breathing for a minute. Brian asked if I was ok and I said "yes, for now," and he immediatly bolted upstairs and picked up my bags and the car seat and loaded the car. I don't think I have seen him move so quick! I told Brian to hold off because they could be false labor pains, as I don't know what even real labor felt like. So we kept timing them during the course of the night.

Later that evening, around 9pm, Brian was timing the contractions at about 3-5 minutes apart. He finally told me that he's calling the hospital and telling them that we are on the way there. At about 9:45-10pm the contractions were so strong and painful I asked for the epideral. I was also dilated already at 4. Brian was doing a great job being my coach and helped me a lot. I think there was only one time that I told him to shut up and he still had his watch and hair on his arm afterwards. :-)

While I was getting my epideral shots around 11:45pm, the person giving me the epideral had to tell us the warning's of getting this. He warned us that if he were to, for any reason, hit a nerve in my back, I could be paralyzed. I think there were some other warnings also, but I didn't pay attention to them. I even asked the nurse if it would hurt because I want to know what to expect on top of my contractions I was having at the sametime. I didn't want to be surprised. The nurses response, "oh, you feel a slight popping or cracking." What??!! I think she could have said, "Oh, you're doing great, and you'll only feel pressure or you will be fine," I think that would have made me more comfortable. So with that said and now Brian is hearing all this, he told me later that he nearly passed out while he was giving the epideral. I remember him telling Brian to sit down after Brian grabbed the I.V cart to hold himself up. Brian said he couldn't stand seeing me in pain and how the epideral was being put into my back. He was worried about me. But that was the only time he felt faint. :-)

Now that I have my epideral, Life is good. :-) During the epideral shots, my water broke and the doctor said that as soon as he's done, get ready to push. Wow. that was quick! And the drugs kicked in right away. I think at one point I started to have a regular conversation with the anesthesiologist. It was quite funny. He came to check up on me and I told him that I was great and asked him how long he's done this for and what his name was and yada, yada. He probably see's that all the time but still thought I was a little weird. Anyway, I started to push around 12:15pm and then at 1:54am, Heidi appeared and daddy cut the cord. Brian was so amazed at how fast everything went.

After everything was over, and now we finally get to hold our precious girl, daddy and I couldn't be more happy. She has the cutest little face and she looks so much like her daddy. After I look at her more, I see her daddy's smile and mischievous grin. :-) We were so excited and daddy posted some pictures on our main blog page right away at 4am to share with everyone. I can't get over how small her toes and fingers are. She's so precious.

I will post some more, but right now I hear our little one waking up from her nap and I will continue again as soon as I can.