Eggplant is powerful stuff

So you may be wondering what happened between my last doctor visit where we were trying to decide whether or not to induce and Graham's arrival. I was really stressed over what to do and leaning toward waiting it out. I had been craving Joe's Italian so we ate there for dinner on Monday night. We had read in our baby book that eggplant is one food that can help start labor so I decided to try the Eggplant Parmesan. We didn't really think it would work (and it wasn't as good as the Chicken Parmesan). We got strawberry cake to go. We got home, ate half the cake, and started watching our Monday night TV and I wasn't feeling so well. I woke up at 1:45 having a contraction, but I wasn't sure it was a contraction since I had never had one. They kept coming and got to 10 minutes apart, but would not get any closer together. I called my doctor about 7:45 (still not 100% sure this was real labor) and she told me to come on in for her to check me but that I had time to take a shower. At this point I had been in labor for over 5 hours and the contractions were tolerable. I thought I had some time to go from 10 minutes to 5 minutes which is when they tell you to call your doctor. Well, sometime while getting ready, they went from 10 minutes apart to 5 minutes apart and were very painful. We got to the hospital at 9:30 am and I was in a lot of pain. I was at 3 cm and definitely in labor so they admitted me and got my IV started and the epidural.

Praise the Lord for modern medicine. The epidural was wonderful. I could not even tell when I was having a contraction. Since we had been on a 10 minute snooze alarm most of the night, we spent the day napping. We didn't even turn on the tv or surf the net. Graham arrived at 4:28 pm after an hour of pushing. Then it was a 3 ring circus...there was a shift change and all these different nurses showed up at the same time to inspect me and the baby. It was a couple of hours later before we made it to our room, fed the baby, and were ready for everyone who had been waiting got to see Graham. We thought only the 4 grandparents were there, but he had lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins waiting to see him too.

I will say there is no rest for the weary in the hospital. Someone is constantly knocking on your door or there is noise outside of your door. All the doctors come visit early in the morning to tell you important stuff while you are still half asleep. Graham had several visitors the next day and the next day (Thursday), we went home. We had planned to go home around 4:30, but it ended up being around 5:30 pm before we were discharged. We waited on transportion for an hour! Finally, a nurse rolled us out. So we got home after dark in the pouring down rain with our new baby. Below are some pictures of us leaving the hospital. I was glad to be home!

I was sad to discover that half of the strawberry cake had to be thrown away, but so thankful that God took care of everything - Graham arrived without being induced, my doctor did the delivery which did not have complications, and our baby is adorable and healthy.