Lucy Arrives

I started going into early labor (but didn't realize it) during a barbeque on the 4th of July. By 10:30 PM that night I was questioning whether this was it or not. However, I kept second guessing myself because I was told by a nurse that it would feel like a knife stabbing me in the back. I kept telling Don that I didn't feel any knives. But by 1:00 AM on July 5th I figured I should go to the hospital to be checked out since I was still feeling very uncomfortable. I thought they were just going to send me home, and was surprised to find out that I was 4 cm dillated and 90% effaced. The nurses looked surprised when I asked if this meant that I wasn't going to make it till the scheduled induction on the 7th. My labor progressed fairly quickly and without much incident (except for the fact that I had to have two epidurals because the first one didn't work and I progessed to 8 cm without a working epidural, but we won't go there). After 30 minutes of pushing, Lucy Rae Vander Griend joined us at 6:17am on her due date, July 5th, 2007. She was 6lbs., 0.6oz. Grammy Marshall-Pederson, Aunt Kristin Flores and Uncle Eric were on hand to witness, help, and photograph. And Grandpa Pederson jumped on the first plane out of Chicago and was at the hospital about 7 hours after her birth. So far she loves to eat, sleep, cry, and fill her diaper.