Anthony James ( The Birth)

After what felt like the longest 2 weeks of my life waiting for my labor to start I finally had my first contraction at about 7:00pm on August 21st...which yes was my due date I was just so sure that this baby was going to come early and when he didn't I though he was never going to come but he obviously knew what he was doing. Back to the contractions my first one came at about 7 but I didn't tell anyone because I wasn't sure it was the real thing and I didn't want to get anyone excited like I had been doing everyday previous to this one. I continued with my night as normal and the contractions kept coming. I decided that this was real about midnight and that is when I woke Paul up to tell him what was going on. About an hour later my contractions were coming 4 to 5 minutes apart and Paul and I were preparing to get to the hospital. The contractions themselves were not bad so I was still somewhat skeptical that this was actually labor but they were coming regularly so I knew we needed to get to the hospital and get checked out. We arrived at the hospital at 2:30am and yes I was in labor and dialated to 4 cm. I decided that I wanted to continue to labor without an epidural as my contractions felt very manageable and even though they were getting a bit more intense they had slowed down. I labored through the night and was even able to fall asleep briefly in between contractions. They checked me again at about 6 am (I think) and I was dialated to 7 cm. That is when Dr. Maresh came in and broke my water and that is when things really picked up. Contractions got much more intense and closer together and in an hour I was ready to push the only problem was the doctor wasn't back yet. I had to hold off pushing which was extremely difficult but once the doctor arrived their was about 20 minutes of pushing and Anthony James was born.