I started having contractions Monday evening, but they were irregular so I didn't think much of them. At around 1 am, I was woken up with very strong contractions and decided to call the doctor, who told me to come to the hospital (I was now exactly 41 weeks). When we got to the hospital, I was still able to breath through contractions so my plan was to labor without pain medication for a while, but as the contractions continued to get stronger, I decided that I wanted the epidural sooner rather than later. After getting the epidural, my fiancé and I were able to get some much needed sleep. At around 9:30 in the morning  they checked my cervix and I was dilated to 8 cm and they decided to break my waters to get things moving along. However, I was still only dilated to an 8 when it hit 4:00. At this point, they decided to give me a small dose of pitocin. The dose of pitocin along with the nurses switching me from my left to my right side moved things along. At around 5 the doctor said I was about ready to puSh. I pushed for a little over an hour, and my beautiful baby boy was born at 6:31 on Tuesday evening. It was the most amazing experience 💙