I swore up and down this entire pregnancy that I was not going to be induced. Well, at 40 weeks and 4 days, on December 16th, we went to the hospital to start our induction.

Portraits taken by Tamara of Simply This Photography; Portraits edited by Danielle Garza

We were going to start with cytotec around 9 pm but due to the amount of women In the hospital already, they pushed it back until midnight. At midnight, my Braxton Hicks were too close together and our nurse had to pump me full of IV fluids to see if the contractions would slow down and at 2:00 am they finally did. She inserted the cytotec and we continued our stay in the triage room (which is tiny). At 7 am, a birthing room finally opened up and they moved us to it. I was exhausted due to the triage beds being so uncomfortable. I slept for less then 3 hours the entire night.

At 8 am, my wonderful doctor broke my water to get things moving along. Around noon, after a few hours of walking halls and bouncing on the birthing ball, I called Tamara, my sister in law and birth photographer. I have been known to be in "denial" when it comes to labor and Noe didn't want me to wait until it was too late to get her there for the pictures. Simply This Photography

By 4:00 pm, I had walked the hall so much, I am pretty sure my path is permanently worn in to the carpet. I had slowly dilated from a 2 to a 5. 2 more checks later and I was still at a 5! I broke down due to the lack of dilation and the amount of pain I was in. I cried.. a lot 😆 I was fully effaced by this point and baby girl was at a -1 station, so there was definitely some progress. However, I was at my mental and physical breaking point and I requested an epidural and while we waited for that, I got a single dose of Stadol. Stadol doesn't help with the pain but it can relax you. Apparently that's exactly what I needed. I stopped crying and I told them that I no longer wanted the epidural. As soon as the Stadol wore off, approximately 45 minutes later, I was in excruciating pain. I was dilated to an 8 and while the doctor and nurses rushed to get everything in place, I felt the overwhelming urge to push.

Three pushes later, at 7:20 pm, I was holding my baby girl in my arms. Noe helped deliver and we had a photographer there to capture the moment where he handed her to me. The look on his face was amazing. I am not sure why we didn't have him help out with the other kids. She immediately made the sweetest puppy dog face and cried so hard. Poor thing clearly wasn't ready to leave her comfy home.

Halle Mae Garza 20ish inches, 6 lbs. 14 oz.

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