Amber was born

Amber was born December 3rd at 5:08am. Boy was that a tough labor! Almost 24 hours of labor and then a c-section!! Amber was just a little too big to fit through and her heartrate was dropping with every contraction so in the suregery room we went after hours of labor. It started out at 5am December 2nd. I woke up to go to the bathroom and felt like the contractions were beginng. I did not want to wake up Rick cause I thought maybe I was losing it. I laid in bed for about an hour and a half and then Rick woke up around 6:30am and I told him what was happening. We started timing them to figure out how long they lasted and how far apart they were. They did not follow any consistency all morning. They would come and go as they pleased. Rick went to work at the normal time at 9:30am and told me to keep him posted, he was only one mile down the road. He called around 12 noon to check in and I told him they were getting real bad. I had already called and told my work I was going into labor and would be out the next 6 weeks. Rick called the doc's office and they wanted me to come by the office before going to the hospital. Rick camew home, we grabbed our bags that we had packed for 4 weeks and went to the doctor. We saw Dr. Bray, she checked me out and told me my water had broke at 5am when I first felt the contractions. My water had been broken for almost 8 hours and the doc said to go straight to the hospital to start the process of labor. She said that they would put me on pitocin to move the labor along faster since it was not progressing very well on it's own. By the time we got to the hospital and checked in and hooked up the the pitocin and IV's and baby moniter heartbeat it was about 4pm. The contractions started to get real bad between 6 and 6:30. That's when my nurse and Rick and my parents all went to dinner and I was in the labor and delivery all by myself. I was 3 centimeters dialated and in terrible pain. The nurse came back from lunch and I immediately asked for an epidural. They gave me one and that took all the pain away. There was only allowed to be 3 people in the labor and delivery room but I had Rick, his sister, both my parents, Rick's aunt and uncle and his dad all in there and then eventually taking turns. They kept my epidual running all evening and the burse told me to get some sleep while I had it easy. She was determined to have this baby before she got off at 11pm. Well that did not happen. My parents left around 10 something cause the doc said it would be several more hours. Around 4am, after hours of pushing the doc said I needed to have a c-section. She said the baby has made the decision. About 4:30am we were in the surgery room and she was born at 5:08am. I was so drugged up that I didn't even get to see Amber for the first time till 10am. She stayed in our room but at night during our stay at the hospital she went to the nursery so Rick and I could get rest. But every night we were there nurses and assistants were in poking and prodding at me. We finally went home Monday December 6th!