The wait is over. The baby is here.

When grandpa George chose the date June 24th in the baby pool, I laughed at him. My due date was June 13th. Most doctors don't like their patients to go past 41 weeks now. Grandpa is oldschool - 94 years, oldschool. He knew that I normally go late, but he must not have any idea I would opt for an induction as soon as I hit my due date. We had lots of things on the calendar, and I was D.O.N.E. with the discomforts of pregnancy. 

June 26th. That was when she was born. Past my due date. Past 41 weeks. Past grandpa's estimate! 

We had lots of things on the calendar, so I kept busy. My doctor seemed to have a full schedule and my appointments kept getting pushed back, a day or two here, a day or two there. I felt very pregnant, but I had felt very pregnant for MONTHS. At least now it felt reasonable. 

We asked my doctor about her about her induction policy with the intention of finding out if she allowed inductions at 39 weeks. She did, but the conversation lead into talking about allowing mom's to go 42 weeks - 42 weeks was the maximum. After that Every conversation after that seemed to navigate to allowing me to avoid an induction. In God's time, I guess. Patience is a virtue, right? Surely this baby would come out sometime!
 
...or maybe not. 

We scheduled the induction for the day before the 42 week mark - 7 AM. When I arived late, the doctor was waiting for me. She went straight to placing internal monitors which she said "counts" as breaking my water and then pitocin. 

You'd think that after 6 kids, and having Braxton Hicks contraction for a month, a drop of pitocin would have kick-started things. Not so much. The morning and afternoon seemed to go very long without much progress. We had to keep the pitocin pretty low and when I laid on my left side, the baby's heartrate dropped. We had to turn off the pitocin and give me oxygen as a preventative measure, and then start over again. My contractions stayed pretty steady throughout, though, so I was sure that I was making progress. 

  When they checked me, I was just 2 cm and the baby was very high - that's after SIX HOURS of pitocin. This is the most frustrating thing. I had put in my time, it was her turn to show up.  I opted for an epidural and a nap. 

"You have the perfect back for an epidural," the anesthesiologist told me. 

The epidural was the perfect dose - not too strong, not too weak. A good decision for sure. But, I never got my nap. The kids came for a quick visit, I ordered chicken broth for dinner. My mom and sister came for a quick visit, but by the time they got there, I was a 9. 

 Fidelity was born at 6:33 PM on Monday, June 26th, 2017.  She was tiny, at 6 pounds, 6 ounces. She was covered in meconium (so bad that we didn't even take her picture until it was cleaned off). But, underneath it all, she was beautiful.