delivery

When they told me it was time for me to start pushing, I kind of had a what??? moment. I mean I read the book, took a class, but while laying on that hospital bed I kind of forgot that there would be a pushing session. I had the mind set that I had the epidural, so there would be no other hills to jump. But pushing a baby out is pretty intense as I would soon find out.
A lot of the next part was waiting for the doctor to be told I was ready to push. Then once the nurses got the OK, They got me in position and it was time to get to work. Here is where i have my biggest regret about the delivery. I wish I had asked them to turn off or at least turn down the epidural. That would have made my 45 minute pushing session a lot quicker I bet. Pushing with a fully loaded epidural is like trying to wiggle your ears when you don't know how. You can't feel your muscles down there, so you have no idea if they are doing what you are telling them to do. It seemed to go on forever, but I gave it my all. Finally I started to crown and it was time to call the doctor. We waited what seemed like 10 or 15 minutes for the doc. It is now like 3:30am and we do the last pushing and Benjamin was born. I took one look at him, saw that he was normal, and said a prayer of thanks to my father in heaven. I relaxed while they cleaned him up and stitched me up, thankful that everything was OK.
To give you some more background, a few weeks before going into labor, I had major fears about dieing while giving birth. I know that might seem silly to some because it is rare to die during childbirth, but it does happen, and I was worried. So, when it was all over with, I was also very thankful that I was OK.
They handed him to me all bundled up and it was like an out of body experience. The thoughts, "Wow, this baby is mine. I created him." come to mind.