Here is my account of my birth, before I forget all the details.

Taylor and I woke up early on April 22 at around 6 am. Loaded up all our belongings, and hopped in the subaru. Honestly, I was not nervous and I remember saying " let the peace that passes all understanding come upon you...". We got to the hospital about 20 minutes early but they took me into the room. I hopped in to my robe and they did some tests. My blood pressure was still high. Debbie was our nurse for the morning shift. She was super nice. By far my favorite nurse there.
After about a half hour Debbie came in to give me my iv. I'd never had an iv before and I hope I never get another one. She blew the first vein on my left hand, so she had to try on my other arm. Owe, that's all I have to say.
After the iv was in I waited about another hour, and at 10 am they started the pitocin. My mom was there by this time, and my aunt had taken crystal with her to go get my.grandma. and it was at this point that Debbie said "yeah this is probably going to take a while so you should tell your friends and family to wait." Ha. That didn't stop my mom. After the pitocin started it took a long time for contractions to even start. And when they did it was just a small unnoticeable cramp.. People kept filtering in and out. Around 8 pm nothing was happening . I was still at 3 cm. My midwife came in and decided to break my water. I thought it would hurt but it didn't, I just felt a rush of warm water. after cleaning up, Taylor and I decided to take a nap before things started to get hard. We had closed the curtain, turned down the lights, and I was lying there as Taylor went into use the bathroom, when all of a sudden the contractions got painful. I could still talk through them. But it was hard to breath. Taylor came out, and I told him it was escalating, so there went our napping. I remember his dad came in as the contractions got worse, and he and Taylor were so loud, and talking and cracking jokes that I finally told them to be quiet with each contraction. Around 10:00 Taylor suggested I try the jet tub. At this point I had to stop takiing during contractions as they were getting progressively more painful. I had forgotten that I wanted to try the jet tub, and since it looked like I wasn't going to have Eli on Taylors birthday I decided to try it. As they were filling it, they checked how far I had come. I was 6 cm. It took about half an hour for them to set it up and for me to get to it and get inside. the warm water was so soothing. I sat there a few minutes and just soaked in the warmth, then it hit. A contraction so painful I almost doubled over and squealed in pain. It hit me so hard, I remember being mad that the warm water wasn't soothing enough. I went through about 5 of these contractions before I realized I wanted an epideral. If I had to go through another 3 to 4 ,maybe more, hours with this pain, I needed an epideral. I told Taylor, who got up and went outside and told a nurse. He came back in, and I just wanted out of the tub. I had started to sweat and the intense pain of the contractions wasn't helping. The nurse came in and unplugged the water, I had only spent about 20 minutes in the tub all together, it was about 10:30 by now. As I stood up to get out, I had a exceptionaly painful contraction that made me want to poop really bad, which I almost yelled to the nurse. I said "oh wow I feel like I have to poop...should i?" The nurse looked at me, and said hold on. She ran and grabbed my main nurse who told me that she wanted to check me before I could use the bathroom. They sat me on the bed and thus is what I heard as another contraction hit " blah blah blyah...she's ready" which I took as your ready to go back to your room. What they had said was, "wow she is 10 cm. She is ready." I had gone from 6 to 10 cm in a matter of 20 to 25 minutes. I limped back to my room because my legs and thighs had gotten so swollen by this time, it was hard to walk. When I got there the girl with epideral walked in and started to set everything up. After about 10 minutes, with the contractions still excruciating, my nurse said "let me give you something to take the edge off". She injected into my iv some medicine and said I may feel really drunk soon. Almost instantly the room began to spin, I couldnt focus my eyes and my head felt really heavy. Also, as the medicine kicked in alissa, Adi and quela opened the door to my room and poked they're heads in. The room was spinning and I felt horrible and u remember giving them this look and shaking my head, so they left. The meds did take the edge off, long enough to put the epideral in and the second I laid on my back the nurse said "ok. You can start pushing now." What! I then realized what they meant by I was ready. Looking back on it now I'm glad I had the epideral due to how much I tore, but then I was kind of upset that I wasn't able to have the completely natural birth I wanted. Oh well. On to pushing. The alcohol induced drug wore off soon after I started pushing. And from there I pushed then rested. I felt like I was going to pass out between contractions, from exhaustion. At one point I even fell asleep. I started pushing around 10:50. At around 11:30 the nurse said she could start to see his head and that I was almost there. I knew I only had 2012 minutes till midnight, in order to have Eli on Taylors birthday, so with all my energy I pushed 5 times with my last contraction, I even leaned forward so I could watch him come out, and at 11:49 with 11 minutes to spare Eli Stone Hicks was born on his daddies birthday. Whew, what a chore pushing was..the midwife told me I tore in 3 places and it took about an hour to stitch me up, but after all that it was so worth it. taje