Happy Birthday Sydney!

I just can't tell you how bittersweet this is! I love that she is growing up, but 5 just seems so OLD! It really makes me feel that --more than ever--every decision we make around her/for her will shape those teenage years I am so afraid of!
The pressure:)
I am going to get together some pictures later of her to maybe put into a little slide show.

This time 5 years ago I was waiting for 8am to call my dr. Wait! That was a Friday also!!! Her birthday is on Friday again! Anyway, I had been having contrax since late Wed. night., didn't sleep all night long, went to work b/c I didn't want to be bored (really?), had about 9 bad ones all day. Phil drove me and picked me up. I just figured really, I was with great people, closer to the hospital, it kept me busy, etc. It wasn't like scary bad like all of my little kindergarteners would crawl under the table or be scarred for life. They just weren't picking up.
I remember that night we went to eat with Ricky and April at Red, Hot and Blue and it did get bad. I remember being mad b/c they kept asking me if I was okay and I kept giving them dirty looks. This was at like 7pm. We came home around 9, more contrax, another sleepless night, the contrax would just not get consistent enough. I'm not sure why I was so calm about this lasting forever. Looking back on it it pisses me off. That was a lot of "prelabor" that didn't get me very far. (Sorry Laura, it wasn't really that bad, don't be scared;)
Finally at 8am after watching Phil sleep for 2 nights while I was AWAKE I called my dr. and was like, what is the deal? I need this baby out! And Friday was really convenient for my family and friends, haha.
They had me come in the office, checked me out, "did some things" and whoa, it got rolling. They sent me to check into Labor and Delivery, we called all of our family (this takes a while). I guess we got in a room and all hooked up around 12. I think my contrax were 3 min. apart, or 2-3. I got my epidural pretty soon, it was not fun. Maybe at like 1:30 or something. They broke my water at 3 b/c it was not getting me far. Oh and then I had Pitocin, whoa. Thank God for drugs. She was finally born at 9:15pm after a lot of work by me, Phil, the nurse, my mom, and my friend Laurin. They really all worked very hard. They whisked her away to the corner so the special care nursery could check her out b/c she had mecomium in her fluid. Poor girl. She was fine and I finally got to hold her and was really, really tired.
When they wheeled me out into the hall and down to my post partum room an hour later there were 14 people there in the hall waiting to see us! I was a deer caught in the headlights. The nurse said "do you want me to keep going?" I waved and said "YES!" See you tomorrow!
My sisters and parents, maybe my other friend Lauren all came to the room briefly and then left.
She was 7lb. 1oz!! Think back to Mollie's b-day post of 9lbs! I sure do love my Sydney!!!! ;)
Kidding, the recovery with Mollie was way easier!