It's been about a week and a half since I got home from the hospital with my little peanut, and we've been adjusting to life with baby. It is such a rewarding, wonderful and frustrating time :) I'm beginning to get more sleep than when Eva first came along....she wanted to feed every 2 hours (and thats from the beginning of one feed to the beginning of the next), but it was taking an hour to an hour and a half to feed her, leaving me with a mere 1/2 hour to catch my breath before I was nursing her again. I was exhausted and extremely sore. Luckily, I talked to the health nurse about it, and found out my little pooper was using me!! How could my precious babe do that?! Once she was fed she continued to comfort suck, making me think she was still feeding....well, that ended right there and we got ourselves a soother. It has been a miracle of all miracles and I can get sleep now!! She's feeding about every 3 hours at night, giving me about 2 hours of sleep at a time....the rest of the time, she makes cute faces in her sleep, grunts, screams and makes poo. She's a wonderful little thing.

After only a week and a half, I think my hormones have calmed down. The first 5 days or so I was a bit of a weeping mess. Just about anything could make me cry and I knew while I was crying that it was for no reason. Just couldn't control those baby hormones. Everything is fine now and I feel quite normal again (other than the lack of sleep :)

Now for the issue of labor...yuck. It was as bad as I thought it would be, and not what I expected all at the same time. As far as labors go, I guess mine was relatively short....it was about 11 hours from when my contractions really kicked in, until I pushed her out. Contractions were terrible, but after the doctor broke my water the contractions became ridiculous. My only saving grace was the shower...wow, was that amazing! I sat in there with the hottest of water pouring on my back ( I was having back labor) and my hubs was talking me through my contractions and helping me breathe. I had been asking for an epidural for an hour and a half, and finally around midnight the anesthesiologist came and stuck this massive needle in my back. I would like to say that it was amazing, but mine wasn't so much. It didn't freeze me from the pelvis down, but it did go right up into my chest so they had to shut it off. I was in the thick of my labor and they were shutting my epidural off for an hour! By the time they turned it back on, I was ready to push, and could feel everything. It was horribly painful, but I'm sure it worked to my advantage because I pushed her out in 20 minutes! That first scream and the slimey baby being put up in my arms was such a wonderful feeling. Steve and I were both crying (me still screaming slightly from the pain). The whole time during my labor I told Steve "I am never doing this again!", but after she was born and we looked at our beautiful little girl...I would do it again.