Hartley Lei

I am so excited to be writing this blog post.  I seriously thought I would never have this baby girl.  Here's the story:


Wednesday morning around 6:00 am I woke up with bad "cramps".  They were pretty strong and coming and going.  Marc woke up around 7:00 and thought this was the day!  My mom (who was already here) woke up around 7:30 and started helping me time them out.  I felt some tightening in my stomach but mainly it was just the pain of lower cramps.  Contractions were not what I thought they would be like.  Everyone told me "You will know when you are in labor".  I am here to stay, I had no idea if I really was.  Finally around 11:00am my contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart and lasting around 45sec-1 min.  Marc and I decided that we would go to the hospital because the pain was getting very bad.  Once we got to the hospital and got all hooked up to the monitors you could tell the contractions were coming strong and fast.  Unfortunately, when they checked me I wasn't dilated AT ALL!!  At this point, I was VERY discouraged.  They called my doctor, Dr. J, and she came up to the hospital.  I will skip most of the details on this next part, but let's just say, once my doctor got there she MANUALLY got me dilated and broke my water.  The minute she opened it, I was instantly dilated to a 2.  I am here to say that whatever she did should be illegal.  It was horrible, but it got the ball rolling!!!  They also started pitocin around the same time.  My doctor asked to nurse to check me in 1 hour.  An hour later, I was only a 3 and the pain was starting to get crazy!  Thankfully, I asked for the epidural because 45 minutes later I was dilated to a 8.  Yes, you heard it right!!!  I went from a 3-8 in under an hour.  I got the epidural just in time.  Everything after this happened super fast.  I was a 8 and Dr. J told us she was going to go sit in her car and read for 30 minutes.  Once she got back she said she was just going to check me but I was already a 10 and ready to start pushing.  The pushing part was hard work but not painful!  I pushed for about 30 minutes and then I got to meet my precious baby girl.  

HARTLEY LEI BATANGAN

She is so precious and prefect!!  She was 8 lbs and 6 oz and 20 inches long.  I cannot believe she is finally here.  My heart is overflowing with excitement and joy!  I am so blessed by this baby girl!