where to begin?

OK! So I am home! And I apologize for not getting to the computer any earlier...I haven't even seen my email yet and I just know it's going to be full...but I wanted to get up some more pictures and tell you a little bit of the "birth story" while she is snoozing.
When we got to the hospital Wed. we were not anticipating being admitted, we were just having some blood work done to rule out any major blood pressure problems. When we arrived, they had everything set for me to be admitted and handed me the gown and a pee cup! YIKES it was really going to start happening! So we were a bit thrown off, but excited nonetheless. The Dr. inserted the Cervidil at I think about 8 oclock and told us to kick back and relzx and we'd start the Pitocin in my IV at 8 in the morning. So Rob packed up to come home for the night and I settled in for what I thought would be my last night of sleep. I WAS WAY WRONG. The cervidil did its magic and I began having contractions (although, I didn't know they were contractions, I just thought I really had to use the bathroom) at about 1:30 AM. I kept getting up and going in the bathroom and unhooking all the monitors they had on me, making the nurses really love my stay. Then at about 5AM (I think...it's all kind of blurry) my water broke on its own...very very strange feeling, if you'd like to know more details, let me know. :) So the nurse came in and got me cleaned up, and called the DR. and midwife. They began the Pitocin right away, but I was already at 4 CMS!!! They could tell that the baby had passed her first bowel movement in side (again , lots of fabulous details for you all!) so they made arrangements with the special care nursery personnel to be on hand for the birth to get her all suctioned up and ensure there were no complications because of it. I started actually figuring out that I was indeed having contractions shortly after, and asked for the "big needle" right away. Let me tell you...I did not feel much after getting the epidural. It was very useful and I got to lay around waiting without feeling any pain. For awhile I didn't even realize I was still in labor, I thought it had all stopped. By about 1:00 I was completely dialated at 10 cms. and could have started pushing, but they wanted to wait to see if she would drop any further dow first, so we waited for about an hour and a half. Again, not feeling anything! It was great! It took about an hour and 45 minutes once I finally started pushing, and had I been able to feel my legs it probably would have been much quicker. :) But she arrived much smaller than they anticipated, in fact, they had brought in the DR. and some specialists because they thought her shoulders would be too large. But again, she was much smaller, thank goodness, and practically popped out. HAHAHA! They got her all checked out, and she was perfect! Then they spent about an hour stitching me up- I ended up with some pretty severe tears- and then we were able to breastfeed and meet the family!!!

SO...it has taken me 3 days to get all of that typed in and posted...it's gonna take me awhile to realize I am much slower and have to plan for EVERYTHING to be much longer than before she came!