our birth story.

Westin's due date was August 31, 2010. I pretty much tried everything to get him to come...well, not everything... but he wasn't ready. So Tuesday, September 7 I was induced. We went into the hospital at noon. I was still only 2 cm dilated. Pitocin started by 1pm. Well, here we go...

1-5pm, pretty much nothing happened. The contractions weren't bad-- Scott & I watched TV & played Phase 10 dice. 5pm rolled around, 3 cm dilated (boo!) and the doctor came in & broke my water. BAM! Now the contractions started! So, 4 hours to dilate 1 cm... this may take a long while... so, my plan was to hold off on an epidural as long as possible-- not because I didn't want it, I did, but since it slows the progress down, I didn't want it yet in hopes that I could dilate more before we slowed me down slower than I already was going.

2 hours of painful labor later it's now 7pm... the pain is bad. Real bad. So I opted for medication to ease the pain & relax me. What did it do? It relaxed me so much that the minute I had between contractions I about passed out, but then the contraction would start & it was just as painful as ever. I was so out of it! So at 7:15 (just 15 min. with the pain meds), I couldn't take it anymore & begged for the epidural! By 7:45pm I was finally relieved of the pain! FEW! The bummer is now we are all sure that we won't be delivering anytime soon....

The nurse checked me a little bit later-- wait, what? I'm 7cm dilated?! Ok, this is going faster than we all thought... so she called the doctor. At 9pm the doctor checked me again, 10cm! I was told at 9:30pm we would do a practice push to see how things go. They thought that I'll probably push for about 2 hours once we start. 9:30 rolls around, I start pushing.... OK, no more practice push, it's go time!

20 minutes later, our beautiful baby boy arrives! Westin Alan Ebsen was born September 7, 2010 at 9:49pm. We couldn't be happier.

> Westin's birth was photographed by Leah Robbins Photography.

> View the slideshow of his birth here.

{ here are a few samples of Leah's photographs from our birth }