Christmas Eve night I said my prayers and asked that I not go into labor for 24 hour- thats it!! If I could just make it those 24 hours, I wouldn't feel so bad for the birthday my little one was going to have! Well Heavenly Father had different plans for my little one. At 3 o'clock in the morning, I suddenly woke up and then felt something change. Then my water broke. I woke up Colby and told him. Both of our thoughts were, "You have got to be kidding me!" We heard some bustling in the kitchen and it turned out that Nikki was up doing some baking! So Colby told her- Hayden also woke up during all of the commotion so we decided to tell her that Santa had visited and we took her in to see what she had gotten. I snapped a couple pictures. Russ and Nikki were busy getting blankets and towels gathered up for our drive and Russ also so kindly went out and started our car. I'm glad I had thought to get a full tank of gas just the day before- just in case! By 3:20 we were on the road.
I called my parents as we were heading out of Hinckley and my dad said he saw a white car go buzzing past just a few moments later- Ha ha!
My contractions during the drive were only about every 6 minutes apart. Colby drove pretty dang fast. We were very fortunate that there weren't any cows on the road and the fog lifted just a few miles outside of Deseret. It was a pretty clear night. Just before we got into Milford I told Colby to turn on his hazard lights just in case we passed a cop. Sure enough, in between Milford and Minorsville those blue and red lights started flashing behind us. Colby said, "Pretend you're having a contraction!" In return I said, "I don't have to pretend!!!" When the cop came to the drivers side window he asked what was wrong and Colby told him that I was in labor. He asked where we were headed and we told him that we were headed to Cedar and he told us to "go on- get out of here!" and as he started to back away he hollered, "Oh watch for deer!!" He followed us for maybe a mile and then turned around.
We got to the hospital about 4:40 (which is our record time for that drive- he he). When I got there, I was already dilated to 7 cm and my contractions were definitely getting stronger. The nurses tried telling me that they thought I could do it without an epidural at this point. I told them that I still wanted to try and get one!!!
I was, in fact, able to get my epidural. It was a great one! I could move, feel my contractions, and could tell when I needed to push. In the end I am so glad that I got it because Hanna was positioned face-up making it harder for her to descend. I think it would have been very very painful had I not gotten it because Dr. Gatherum tried multiple times to turn her but she wouldn't. Just before 7:00 they decided to let me start pushing to see if that would help her descend. I pushed for a little over an hour. Once she started coming- she had the cord around her neck twice- once that was removed she started turning herself. Dr. Gatherum and the nurse even thought it was pretty cool. At 0809- we got to welcome our beautiful little girl into this world! She pinked up quickly and was perfect from the get-go.
While pregnant, I thought that for sure she was going to be over 8 lbs. But in fact, I had a TON of fluid and the placenta was huge! I was super grateful that she was in the 7 lb range!!
It was love at first sight- we couldn't have been more blessed. We are so grateful that we get to have her in our family. She brings such a sweet spirit into our lives. 
