The Beginning.....

December 5th
We headed to the hospital on Sunday evening.  We were going in to start the induction process, planning to deliver the next day.  As we settled into the room for one last good nights sleep....yeah right...try sleeping with 2 ticking clocks and a fetal monitor rattling away all night. :)  Let me try that again.  We settled into our room, then the doctor came in and gave me some Cervadil and we tried to get some sleep.  Around 5:30am my contractions became more intense.  The nurses came in around 7:00am to start the Pitocin, and just asked when I could get an epidural. :)  Not sure what she was thinking, but the nurse mentioned a 2 day induction.  I almost jumped out of the bed to strangle her!  No one said anything about this lasting 2 days! Anyways, the doctor came in shortly after and told us we were around 1 1/2-2 cm dilated.  She told us that she didn't think we would be delivering until around lunch time or after.  But she did say I could go ahead and get my epidural, so I didn't really care about anything after that.  Well...she came back a few hours later and checkd me again, and I was already 9 cm dilated!  Thankfully I already had my epidural b/c some of my contractions were going off the monitor and were coming pretty quickly.  I could actually feel some of them even with the medicine.  Both grandparents had arrived at the hospital thankfully, and were anxiously awaiting Caleb's arrival.
We pushed for about an hour....and Caleb Li-Shen Hardesty finally arrived at 11:53am!  He weighed 7.7 lbs and was 19 inches long.  Sean was a great birthing couch and cut the cord!  We were all very thankful it happened so quickly and with no issues.
December 8th
We were getting ready to be discharged and then found out that Caleb had jaundice.  The pediatrician said that his levels were high enough, that she wanted to keep him another night so that he was under the high power lamps.  So, we ended up "boarding" at the hospital for another night.  (First, I didn't know you could do such a thing.  Second, how much was this going to end up costing us. :))
Thankfully he tested much better the next day and we were finally discharged that afternoon.  So we all headed home to start our lives with our new addition!