Happy Birthday, Annalise!!

November 2008

November 2009

Well....not really yet. At 11:49 tonight she will be one year old! I cannot believe how quickly this year has gone by! At this point in the day last year I was finally checked into the hospital after a few hours of walking. When my contractions were 10 minutes apart, I called like I was supposed to and they told me to come in to be checked. It was about 5 am when I called and about 6 am by the time we got everything around and got there. The doctor check me and I don't remember how many centimeters I was, but apparently I was not enough to be checked in to the hospital but the doctor felt that if I walked around for 2 HOURS or so that I would probably speed up the process and she would check me in. So, off Stan and I went to walk the campus of Geisinger. At that point I was already getting some pretty intense back labor so when Stan had his back turned, I would sneak away and find somewhere to sit down. He would then try to coax me to walk more...and I would comply....only to find another spot to sit for a minute or so. That back labor was sooooooooo intense and only got much worse as the day went on. I was determined to make it as long as I could though without any drugs. Anyway...we walked and walked and walked and returned for me to be checked at 9 am. The walking worked and I was checked into the hospital. The rest is actually somewhat of a blur until I got to the point where I needed to begin pushing at about 9 pm. I did end up getting an epidural around 7 pm or so....I could not take the back labor any longer. The next time I really hope that I don't have back labor because I think I probably could have made it if it were not for that. Before I got the epidural I asked the nurse if there was anything else that I could have that would just take the edge of the back pain and she said for back labor the ONLY thing that works is an epidural....so I wimped out and did it. Actually now sitting here typing at that point I had no idea that Anna was going to be over 9 pounds so actually maybe it was a good thing I got it because the pushing was something else because of her size!!!!! I do plan on next time again going as long as I can without anything and see if I can make it all the way. Anyway, after about 2 hours and 49 minutes of pushing, Annalise Olivia Hess can into our lives....and timely on her due date I might add. As I was pushing I was determined to get her into this world before the clock said midnight because of course I wanted to make the deadline!!!! This has become quite a joke between Stan and I. The nurses told us that supposedly Anna is supposed to have a lifetime of luck and good fortune because she was born naturally on her due date!!! So we will see........
I am going to post some pictures tonight after she goes to bed because I have a million things to do at the moment.