Here is the condensed version of the story...my water broke at home at 3:20 am Nov. 26th. We went to the hospital the next morning when my contractions were about 5 minutes apart. As soon as they admitted me they basically strapped me to a bed and wouldn't let me get up for any reason because my water was already broken. As a result my contractions stopped...then they put me on pitocin to make them start again. My hopes for a natural childbirth were beginning to look dim but I continued to refuse pain medication and use my Hypnobabies meditations to get through the contractions. Jon, the kids and my mom all hung out with me until about midnight that night. At that point I had still only progressed to 4-5 centimeters and I was in agony. The baby had also begun to show signs of distress as her heart rate would drop during my contractions off and on. We sent the children and my mom home for the night since it was obviously going to be awhile. I had been in labor for 21 hours by then and finally agreed to an epidural out of desperation! Actually Jon kind of took over for me and decided that would be the best thing to do and he was right!!! After the epidural took effect I guess my body relaxed so much that I started to progress much faster. We called the kids and told them to come back to the hospital at about 4:00 am on Nov. 27th (my actual due date!) My mom brought them back and they waited another 3 hours until Shiloh arrived at 7:01 am. You can tell by the looks on the girls faces that they were completely groggy and out of it by then haha! But my mom, who was able to stay in the delivery room with me during Shiloh's birth, was ecstatic and I will never forget the look on her face when Shiloh entered the world! Jon cut the cord and then went around snapping the first pictures of Shiloh...she was definitely worth the wait...