Joey was born on March 30, 1994 at 7:55 P.M. I had a routine doctor's appointment on the 29th in the early evening and on the way there I started feeling nauseaus so when we got there I told the doctor this and he hooked me up to a fetal monitor!

I still had almost 3 weeks to go so I thought it was nothing! After monitoring me for about an hour or so he decided that I was going to go into labor that night or soon after, He did an internal and found that I was dialated 1/2 a centimeter and the fetal monitor was picking up small contractions that I was not feeling yet! He checked my blood pressure and found that it was quite high and was concerned about that. He sent me home to "relax" (yeah right) and told us to call him around 7:00 pm that evening to let him know what was going on!

We went back to my parents house and proceeded to wait! The contractions had started already but they were very irregular, Finally I had had 5 contractions that were 10 minutes apart and we called the doctor. By this time it was only about 5:00 pm He decided that I should go to the hospital and have my blood pressure checked because he was worried about toxemia!

We arrived at the hospital at 6:00pm and I was admitted because my blood pressure was very high! I was hooked up to an IV and was told to walk around, I was only 1 centimeter at this point, After about 2 hours I was told that I had to remain in bed because they were going to be giving me magnesium to comtrol the toxemia. They also gave me pitocin at this point to progress labor, which of course didn't happen! After a terrible 10 hours and only 2 more centimeters I BEGGED for an epidural, which I did receive THANK GOODNESS!!!!! It was smooth sailing from there until I needed another shot of it! LOL and then another!

Once the pitocin began to work my labor went nicely especially the fact that I couldn't feel anything anymore! I do remember that I didn't like not being able to feel my legs and my Mom{D} stayed with me for a LONG time just moving my legs for me!!

Anyway I know I am dragging this out....once it came time to push I pushed for 15 minutes and our beautiful baby boy showed his face!! The feelings that washed over me are undescribable and all I could do was say OH MY GOODNESS over and over!!Hubby was just standing there with a look of awe on his face. He was so perfect and it was then that I realized that it was all worth it!! Nothing mattered and all the pain was gone never to be thought of again!

He weighed in at 7lbs 2 ozs. and was 19 inches long! We decided to name him Joseph Barrett, Joseph after his Daddy and Barrett after My Daddy!It is a day I will NEVER forget!!!