January 5th I had an induction the start time at 9pm. Everything went as good as planned. They started me on picotin (sp?) at 4am and I immediately started having contractions. No one told me that contractions were legit period cramp pains. X 20. They got closer and closer so fast and it hurt more and more each time. I'm sorry I have forgotten the time in between when all this happened but I eventually asked for the epidural because I couldn't stand to even think I could do this myself. I had a catheter in which the baby felt on his head and moved a lot and caused a whole different kind of pain down there and his blood pressure went up because he was freaking playing with it. They had broken my water and my contractions got worse but the epidural lady however was also preoccupied at the moment of course so I bit down and counted through my contractions 1-15 and breathed for two short minutes with my husband massaging my lower back. The pain got worse and worse. I was praying for that lady to come in with the epidural. It felt like forever but she finally came but of course by then my contractions were so close together and she couldn't give me the epidural when I was having a contraction so we waited and waited for the right moment. I will say that the epidural feels like the needle they use when you have a cavity at the dentist. At least that's it what it felt like to me. I felt great after that. The nurses gave me a peanut ball to stick between my legs so the baby's head could come down. He was already way down anyway. Now I couldn't feel anything waist down but I did feel his head moving closer and closer. I asked my husband to turn on Ellen because it was 3pm but I didn't get to watch her because the nurse came in to check how dialated I was, she moved my leg and looked at the other nurse and said "um, well what do you think?" His head was right there. They got me ready and turned the mirror down on the ceiling so I could see. One nurse was telling me what to do because I couldn't feel anything, however I was getting some movement back in my toes which freaked me out because I didn't want to feel any pain. The nurse told me to pull back on my legs and pull myself forward. All of which I couldn't do because I was so numb even my hand wouldn't grasp my other leg. My husband helped and other nurses did too. I squeezed myself together as hard as I thought anyway because I couldn't tell if I was doing anything, but they were yelling like I was doing a great job and the nurse counted to 10 and we did this for 3 or 5 times and all of sudden I watched the mirror as my baby slid out and pooped and peed all over the doctor. His cord was wrapped all over the place. My husband cut it and then he was weighed and he peed again on the scales. 8 pounds, 20.5 Inches. Born at 3:35pm. Finn Davis-Starr.

The picture with his eyes open is at 9 days old.