O Family Fun: Awaiting Ethan's Arrival

I promised the Labor and Delivery story so here it is...over a week late...but better late than never!

I began having contractions at 11:30 PM Sunday evening. I had been terribly uncomfortable all weekend; however, since I had been having so much false labor I tried to ignore it and keep sleeping. At 1:30 the contractions were getting stronger and I couldn't walk enough circles between my kitchen, dinning room, and family room to get them to slow down (with the false labor it slowed them down). I decided to get in the shower to see if the warm water would stop them. When the shower didn't help I decided I better start timing the contractions. I realized they were about 8 minutes apart and so John decided to get up and get ready to head to he hospital. When we were finally ready to head to the hospital the contractions suddenly stopped!! I couldn't believe it...False Labor AGAIN!
I was so disappointed and so John and I tried to go back to sleep-Showered, shaved, and ready to go to work Monday morning :-( After about 1/2 an hour the contractions started up again and they came back more forceful than ever. John and I convinced ourselves that this was just another mean trick that my body was playing on us so we continued to try to sleep. At 6:30 am I was in severe pain and when we timed the contractions they were 5 minutes apart and very intense. We decided if they kept up that we would head into the hospital at 7:30 AM.
7:30 AM rolled around and we headed to the hospital. John was dressed for work and we were really expecting to be sent home (I had one false alarm the week prior where we were sent home). When the nurse checked me I was dilated to a 4 and 50% effaced...Yeah!! We were really in Labor! As soon as the doctor admitted me to the hospital we called our parents to have them start heading down to Bartlesville. We were expecting a big snow storm so John and I were hopeful that they would make it in time and safely.
I received my epidural at 11:15am and they started a slight drip of Pitocin after 12:00. The doctor said we would have JR sometime in the afternoon. John's parents arrived a little after 1:00 and my parents a little after 2:30. John and I were both so relieved that they had made it and we were now ready for Jr to arrive!
At this point we were hopeful that we would see Jr between 4 and 6:00 pm. The progress began to slow but I was fine with it...I was pain free...living easy with my epidural!! What an amazing advance in medicine! :-)
Long story short, I didn't begin active labor (pushing) until just before 6:00 PM. This lasted for almost two hours and Jr was born at 7:53 pm. Those two hours are better left undocumented but let's just say it was intense, painful, John and I were both so glad it was finally over!
After such a long labor, I am not sure how effective the epidural was during the last two hours. Let's just say it was definitely the most painful thing I have ever been through. I could move my legs easily and they were no longer numb and tingling as they had been earlier in the day. JR was turned the wrong way so after 1 1/2 hours of unsuccessful pushing the Dr said he would need to go ahead and use the vacuum to assist. This left a terrible bruise on poor little Ethan's head :-( but we were extremely fortunate that we were able to deliver without a C-Section. As soon as Jr was born they whisked him away to monitor his breathing and heart rate. John and I had planned to hold Jr to determine which of the 3 names that we were considering would be the final selection. Since we were not able to hold/see him we went ahead and went with our first instinct: Ethan Mathew! We are thrilled with the name and we are so happy he is finally here with us!! What an amazing experience!

Getting ready for the Epidural!