Happy 13th Birthday Taylor

Thirteen years ago today at exactly 7:18pm God gave me the first of my jewels. Here is her birth story.

Well with this being my first baby, I had no idea what labor was going to be like. We made 2 "false alarm" trips to the hospital cause I just knew that all the braxton hicks I was having was the real thing. I finally bullied my dr into inducing Taylor on May 18, 1998 cause I was just tired of being pregnant, that was her due date and I was ready to get her here. She had other plans. Saturday May 16, 1998 I started having contractions sometime in the middle of the night. They were not bad enough to get me out of bed but they did wake me up. For some crazy reason I remember thinking that if I just laid still they would go away. MR (Taylor's dad/my now ex husband) had a police thing at the mall that day and I did not even tell him anything was going on. He got up and left while I was still asleep. I finally dragged myself out of bed at 9am, got dressed and went to my Mom's house. I wasn't feeling great and did not want to sit at home alone. When I got to my mom's house my nieces were there from Tennessee, I played with them for a while but noticed that the pains I was having were getting stronger and making me more uncomfortable. We started timing them and when they got to be about 5 minutes apart we headed out to the hospital at around 12:30. Got to the hospital and they put me in triage, I called MR to let him know where I was and what was going on. He said to make sure they were keeping me before I called him again (makes you wonder why we are divorced huh???) They checked me, I was at a 3 and monitored me for a while. They decided to go ahead and keep me and at 2:30 I got a room and was there to stay.

MR came on up and the dr came in around 3 to break my water to get things going. That's where it gets fun. This is my first baby and the nurse I had immediately tells me that since the dr is breaking my water so early then I am going to have a dry birth which is very painful. So here I am, in labor, no drugs and the nurse is filling my head with crazy dry birth thoughts. I wanted an epidural but I could not get one until I was a 4. It started to get a little tough so I asked for something, they gave me Demerol. Worst thing I have ever done. It made me sleepy and unable to focus on my breathing which made labor 10x worse. I finally begged for an epidural and since it was around 5pm by this time they let me have it. The anesthesiologist came in and gave it to me, while he was setting it up he asked the nurse if I needed the pump. The nurse checked me and I was at a 9, so no pump just an injection.

About 30 minutes after I got my epidural I was at 10 and ready to start pushing. Taylor did not want to move down at all. I pushed for an hour before things got serious. The dr came in (not my regular doc but a doc on call) He had never seen me before so he took one look at my belly and at MR and called in another nurse. He thought she was going to be a whopper! I pushed for another 48 minutes and there she was. This baby girl with the biggest cheeks and the most black hair I had ever seen. She had so much hair that when the dr did my episotomy, he cut a lock of her hair. The nurse found it while she was drying her off and we have it saved in her baby book as her first haircut ;) She weighed 9lbs and 2 oz and was 21 inches long at birth, but I swear a pound of it was just in her cheeks!

Today she is 13 and still the most beautiful person I have ever seen (with the exceptions of her brother and sister who are just as beautiful in different ways) She is beautiful on the inside as well as the outside. I am amazed that God has blessed me so much with this amazing daughter.

I must say so myself...I have done a great job!