Finally - my birth story!

Thanks to a friend of mine, I just typed up my birth story for her in an email. I figured that I might as well get it on here too!

I had a contraction wake me up out of the dead of sleep at like 1:40am the day I had him. I started timing them and they were 3-5 minutes apart. After like the 3rd contraction, I had a little bit of spotting and figured "this is it!" So I timed them for an hour, called the Dr. and woke Spike up when the Dr said to go in. I was already 4cm when I got to the hospital. I was 3-4cm at my appt. a few days before then. Once I was admitted to the hospital I walked around the maternity floor for an hour to try and help things along. Nothing happened... So I got into bed and had them give me some staidol for the pain. I believe I made it to 6cm before I even asked for an epidural. Once I got that, I waited a while. I think it was about 10:30am when the Dr came in and broke my water. I stayed at 6cm until 12:30pm. The Dr then came back and started me on pitocin to get things moving. I'm assuming I was on a really low dose, because I was stuck at 6cm until 3pm. I was having back labor (contractions I felt across my lower back), so they gave me some more epi. At 4pm, the Dr. came back in and increased the pitocin.... A LOT... By 4:15pm my contractions were so big and were back to back with no break. I kept telling the nurse that I needed to push and that the pain was so bad. So the Dr. comes back in and was like OMG you're 9cm! Its almost time to push! I was like, I can't NOT push right now! So they let me push a little whenever I felt like I needed to. Just so you know, there is soooo much rectal pressure that it seriously feels like you are about to take the biggest poop in your life. No joke! I wish someone had prepared me for that. I never would have imagined having rectal pressure. But anyway, I started pushing and actually pushed the whole time lying on my right side, until the last push. For that one, I managed to get on my back. On my last push, the Dr told me to STOP pushing, and I could actually feel her trying to push Brock back in! I guess he was coming out with his hand up next to his head. By that point there was noooo stopping me. I couldn't help it! I blasted that baby right out! Because I did that, I ended up with a 3rd degree partial tear :-( The Dr. took about an hour to stitch me up - at least that's what it felt like. I'm sure it was less. But that part hurt wayyyy more than the birth itself. I'm not kidding. I was miserable. My recovery has been alright. About 3-4 days later I hit my maximum swelling point and could barely walk. Motrin wasn't cutting it! Now, almost 2 weeks post partum, I feel so much better. My swelling is almost gone! I don't have to take as much motrin either.