Rebekah grace Dobbs was born at 12:14am on 2/26/2011. Happy birthday sweetheart. After watching the office on Thursday night my stomach started hurting and I told mike I thought they felt slightly like contractions. Mike was in denial. I woke up at 4am and my stomach was still hurting in waves. By 5am I was noticing a pattern of 8 minutes apart so I got up and finished the laundry and packing for the hospital. Just in case. I had the boys all day on my own and they were so good for their mommy. I kept having contractions 8 minutes apart but they were really mild. They started picking up intensity at 3 so I called mike and asked him to come home by 4:30. He wasn't really convinced I was in labor and neither was I. I decided to call the doc to give her a heads up but I wasn't planning on heading to the hospital anytime soon. When I called the doc she said I needed to come in right away. She said, "I know your husband has seen a lot of deliveries but I'm sure he doesn't want to do one on his own yet." so we made some phone calls and our dear friend Lori came over to watch the boys before nana Dobbs arrived. We headed to the hospital and I was convinced we would be heading back home within the hour. My contractions were there but not bad at all. Walking to the maternity ward they did start picking up in intensity. When I got to triage around 7 a nurse didn't even have time to start monitoring me when the doctor came in and checked me and I was a three. She said I was staying and having a baby tonight. She told me she would be back in an hour to break my water. I decided to walk so I could progress and get my epidural sooner rather than later. After I walked for an hour I was a four. Then the doctor broke my water at 8 and I got an epidural right away. The epidural was good but I was still feeling the contractions which was a bummer. After a couple of hours they checked me again and I was only a five which was disappointing. So they started me on pitocin. Around 11:50 pm the doctor came to check me and I was only a six and she said my contractions were weak. At this point I felt like my epidural wasn't doing its job and my contractions were getting really painful. I was disappointed to hear that these were weak contractions. The doctor said I should get a boost in my epidural since it would probably be awhile. At midnight she left and the epidural guy came in with the extra medicine. He gave me a good dose so I could try to sleep but warned me that when it came close to go time he wouldn't be able to give me more because I needed to be able to feel my legs for that part. He left the room around 12:05. I asked the nurse to help me lay on my side so I could try to sleep because it sounded like I was in for a long haul ahead of me. She helped me on my left side and I started feeling immense contractions even though I couldn't feel below my waist. She said she wanted to check me and lo and behold rebekahs head was right there. She called the doctor who rushed in. I couldn't feel anything below my waist so they had to put my legs up and I didn't get one push out and rebekahs head and arm were out and she was crying. The nurse was still trying to call the other nurse who cleans the baby to get in the room. Rebekah just slid right out and I couldn't feel a thing because of the last dose of drugs. It was amazing how fast it all happened. Mike was in awe that there wasn't even a pushing process to go through. We thought David was fast with five pushes but rebekahs delivery was lightening quick. It was as though she was crawling out herself. I think she was offended when the doctor said they were wimpy contractions. Rebekah was perfect. They said she would have received a ten algae score which is essentially impossible but the bottom of her feet were slightly purple so she got a 9.9. She was 2.5 weeks early but still weighed 7 pounds 9oz and was 20 inches long. She is a beauty. We will get to go home later today and I am looking forward to seeing the boys. Hopefully they take kindly to their little sister. It's always hard changing things up when we've been in such a good routine. But where's the fun in life if you stay in the same routine forever? Grandma Karius is in town to help us with the transition to three kids. Pray for us! Love, Katie