Sasha is ONE!

Out little baby girl is not so little anymore, it seems... Today, Sasha turned one and we had such a wonderful day celebrating (I'll upload pictures once I go through all of them - from a few different cameras). Happy birthday, beautiful baby girl, we love you so much and are so happy to have you for a daughter, you couldn't have been more perfect!
A year ago today, Sasha was born. I don't think I've ever done a full labor story on here, so I thought this might be just the time for it (I'll try to be concise and not share too many details). The day before Sasha was born we went to the hospital in the morning to get me checked out because I was having some minor bleeding - I was monitored for a bit and it turned out to be nothing. That day, my doctor had scheduled me for an induction the following Friday, September 12th. We went home and spent the day hanging out, walking and eating spicy foods (which are supposed to help with getting labor started). That evening I even told Y to not worry about me and go to work the following day (little did we know what was going to happen that morning). I woke up at about 4:30am with pretty strong contractions, but since they were still pretty far apart at that point, I went back to bed to try to get some rest. At around 6am, my water broke; let me tell you there was nothing pleasant about it. I called my doctor, luckily she was already at the hospital with another patient and she told me that that was it, to get ready and get to the hospital, but not to rush, since my contractions were still not much closer together. So I took a shower, then woke Y up and we headed out.
We got checked in at the hospital at 10am. I remember thinking how quiet the labor floor was, even with dozens of women in labor (I was later told that about 99% of their patients get the oh-so-magical epidural, so that explained it!) I was checked numerous times to see how I was progressing, but it was a very slow process, so at 12pm, they gave me pitocin to speed it up. At about 4pm, the doctor checked me and as I was 5cm dilated, decided to give me an epidural then. Now, I have to say that I am terribly afraid of needles, even the small ones, so the thought of a needle going in my spine completely horrified me, but I've heard horror labor stories and I was determined to have as little pain during the process as possible. So they kicked Y out of the room and the anesthesiologist came in; she and my nurse were wonderful, they were chatting about getting manicures and pedicures while putting in the needle! I am so glad that I did get the epidural though, the pain was miraculously gone within 15 minutes and I was joking around for the rest of the day and in complete and utter shock when the nurse had showed me how frequent and strong my contractions were - I was not feeling them. Granted I wasn't feeling much at all, from the waist down anyway, I couldn't move my legs at all, so they had to adjust the levels of the drugs, but it was wonderful!
I think I managed to nap a little a  few times before all the relatives started coming in and got some much needed rest (besides that gave Y a chance to get out, stretch his legs and get some food too). My in-laws, my sister and her boyfriend, and my parents all came to the hospital that evening to meet the new baby. At around 9pm, my doctor checked me and I was almost 10cm, so we were just waiting for a bit. About an hour later, I had the urge to start pushing, a pressure-like feeling in my lower abdomen (even with epidural). At this point, they turned off the epi, so that I could get some feeling in my legs, but unfortunately that didn't really help, the nurse and Y had to each hold up one leg when I started "practice pushing" a few minutes later. I think my practice run went so great that the nurse rushed out to get the doctor who literally had to tell me to stop and take a breather while she got changed and got everything ready! And they had told me that since the baby was fairly large (they were estimating her at 8 and a half pounds), I'd be pushing for a couple of hours, so pretty much nobody was expecting to see the baby crowning so soon.
I have to admit, the pushing part was hard. My epidural was wearing off and the I was feeling everything (except for my legs of course!) I had bad pressure on my right side - which I'm assuming was Sasha pushing on me. I was exhausted. I think at some point I even said "I can't do this anymore" - yup, I'm pretty much a wuss, which is why I said right off the bat that I will need an epidural. I pushed for less than 30 minutes before Sasha was born. And it was just beautiful! I cried a little, but then they took my baby to get cleaned up (she had meconium in her lungs so that needed extra attention immediately). She was born at 10:47pm. In the meantime I was being stitched up, which I honestly do not remember at all, part of it was that I still had some epi in my system and part was that I was watching my baby, completely mesmerized. They gave her to me a few minutes later after checking that everything was ok. And she was so so beautiful! With dark gray eyes and full head of black hair. She was a long girl weighing in at 8.1 lbs and 20" long. I was able to breastfeed her a little right away before they took her to get measured and weighed and checked out properly. She got a 9/9.5 on her APGARS and I was actually proud of her for that!

We are so so lucky to have this little girl in our lives and can't imagine our world without her! I'm so excited to see all the things that she'll be up to, all the discoveries she'll make in the world and all the places she'll go, all the books she'll read (yes, she'll be a book nerd just like her mama I'm sure). We love you baby girl!