For those of you interested in reading her birth story... here it is.

Well from the beginning I had a feeling that she would be early. However not 11 days early, was thinking more like 2.

Sunday night the 19th I started getting Braxton Hicks contraction like no body's business. So sporadic and in very large groups at some points, I immediately told myself to go pack my hospital bag. Thankfully I had hers done a while ago after I washed all her newborn clothes that I received after my shower. After everything was packed I drank a ton of water, had some cereal and they subsided.

The next morning was the start of my last week at work. I woke up and started getting ready for work. About 7:15 am I got another BH contraction, 20 min later I got another one but it was a lot stronger. Enough to where I decided to call into work. Shortly after I started getting legit contractions.

We moved out of town a few months ago, so my drive to the hospital is an hour long. I got my 4 year old daughter and our things into the car and left at 8:30, my plan was going to my parents house until I needed to be in the hospital since they lived 10 min away from the hospital. However it was still an hour drive to their house, and my contractions were 7-10 min apart. By the time I got to their house they were 5-6 min apart. Both my parents were at work, and so was my husband.

About 9:30 my husband got to my parents house, and I was on the phone with the clinic after trying to get a hold of them all morning. By the time I had them on the phone I had already had some diarrhea, lost my mucus plug and vomited twice. The clinic told me to come in so they could check to see how dilated I was.

My contractions were so strong I had to partially crawl to the front door because everytime I stood up it would trigger one. We took my daughter to the neighbors house (who is practically like a grandmother to me) and headed to the clinic. I brought my bowl which was good because I threw up again in the car. Halfway to the clinic I told my husband to just take me to the hospital instead of the clinic, my contractions were 1 min apart and there was no way I could walk let alone walk to an elavator and get to the clinic.

Got to the hospital and was put into a room. I decided to do an epidural because my contractions with my 4 year old were bad enough to cut off blood circulation to her and caused her some distress and a scary low heart rate. I had similar contractions to make me want it early this time instead of last minute. I had to wait for my blood work to be done before I could receive it. I was already at 7.9cm so I could get the epidural immediately. However, I was so dehydrated it took a toll on Nova. I had to be hooked up to an IV and went through 2 bags quickly, I was also hooked up to oxygen and then waited for the epidural.

Got the epidural a little while later, was able to relax and got little Nova back to being normal. Compared to my last pregnancy, having the epidural I was so relaxed and I just hung out with my husband and best friend until I was at 9cm and they decided to break my water. Then we let her come down a little on her own until I really felt the urge to push. I pushed for about 30-45 min and Little Nova was born at 3:43pm. She had a very short umbilical cord, so they had to cut it right away to be able to get her up to me.

In the end, she was a very healthy little girl 7lbs 8oz and 19 1/2" long :) maybe it was a good thing she came out early otherwise she would probably weigh a lot more! She was bigger than my first and my first daughter was born on her due date.

Thanks for listening! I love having a newborn again :)