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Well, I finally have a moment to write out my labor story of Baby Eli. I wanted to go into labor on my own from the beginning of this pregnancy, since I had to be induced with my daughter, and for the first 22 weeks I thought it was possible. Then I got referred over to the high risk OB at the hospital and they decided that it was best if I be put on blood thinners, due to the fact that I had a blood clot in my lung after my daughter was born. So I started giving myself injections of blood thinners twice daily and had to deal with the fact that I would have to be induced early so that the doctors would be able to have more control. They scheduled my induction for May 19th and in my head this was going to be his birthday... but I hadn't taken into account that babies have minds of their own. On Thursday, May 15th, after having a massage and and an adjustment at the chiropractor's office, My husband and I went grocery shopping, everything seemed completely normal. At 9:00 P.M. I sat down to watch Grey's Anatomy and was addressing birth announcement envelopes when I noticed that I was having painless contractions pretty often. I ignored it though, since I had been having contractions on an off for the past 2 weeks. At 10:00 I sat down on the bed and was on the laptop when I noticed the contractions again. My husband started timing them and they were gradually getting closer and closer together... 7 minutes apart for a while, 5 minutes apart for a while, and finally at 4 minutes apart they started getting a little painful. I called labor and Delivery and they told us to come in. So we left our sleeping daughter with a babysitter and drove to the hospital. We got there a little after midnight and they hooked me up to the monitors. My contractions were reading at about 4-5 minutes apart. The nurse checked my cervix and I was at 4 cm. No big deal, I had been at 4 cm. for the past two weeks. When the nurse pulled her hand out I felt a warm gush. She got this weird look on her face and I asked her if my water had broken. She said no, that it was blood. I started freaking out but she told me that it would be ok. The doctor came in and said that they were going to admit me because of the bleeding and that if I wasn't in active labor by morning that they were going to give me pitocin and induce me. His plan was to pump me full of fluids to try and slow down the contractions so that I wouldn't have the baby before my blood thinners had worn off. So I was admitted to the L&D floor and was told to try to get some sleep. It soon became obvious to me that although my contractions were further apart than before, they were getting more and more painful, too painful to sleep. So I labored all through the night, reading, listening to music, and walking the halls. Finally, at about 4:30 in the morning the doctor checked my cervix to see if I was prgressing on my own. I was! I was 5 cm! I labored a while longer and the contractions were getting closer and closer together. The doctor talked to me about the pitocin and the epidural at 8:30 in the morning and I told him that I would rather not have either. By this time my blood thinners had worn off so I was ok to have the baby. A new doctor cam on at this time and she checked my cervix and I was at 6 cm! She broke my water at that time. The contractions started getting very painful but I was handling them well. The nurses kept teasing me that I was so calm and collected. They were calling me "mother earth" lol. About an hour later I asked to have my cervix checked. I was 8 cm. The contraction were getting very intense and long, but they were spaced about 4 minutes apart still, so I had enough time inbetween them to convince myself that I could do just on one more. At about 10:15 I went pee and felt like I had to push. So once again the doctor checked me, I was at 9 cm. I got on my birthing ball to try to bring the baby down and it worked, I felt a sudden gush of more fluid and the sudden strong urge to bear down, this was at about 10:45 A.M. The doctor came in and I had dilated almost all the way. I all I had was a very small lip of cervix called an "anterior lip". This was the worst part of my labor up until this point. With every contraction I got the intense urge to push but I couldn't because the doctor didn't want me to tear my cervix. It took me more than a half an hour to get rid of the anterior lip, but finally at 11: 25 I was allowed to start pushing. I pushed as hard and as long as I could during each contraction. I pushed so hard and so long that I started blacking out at one point. The attending doctor decided I needed an episiotomy because my scar from tearing with my previous delivery was just holding me together too tight. So he gave me a shot of numbing stuff and made the cut. I pushed again and his head came out. The cord was wrapped around his neck twice so they unwrapped it and I pushed again and the rest of him came out. They put him up on my belly and He was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen (the other most beautiful thing being my daughter). He was 6 lbs 13 oz and 20.5 inches long. He was born after 10 minutes of pushing, about 14.5 hours of natural (pain med and pitocin free!!) labor.