Early Morning Update

So its been a tremendously long night...We are now officially across the 30 hour mark for this labor. I must tell you, I am absolutely astonished at what my wife can handle. She is so incredibly strong. I get teary eyed just thinking about it. Okay, so here's the overnight chronology:

11pm-1am labor continued to get harder and harder with contractions usually only a minute or two apart and very painful. Tiff spent a good portion of the evening in the tub. Water running down her back seemed to help a lot.

1:45am - her water began to break slowly so our midwife Paula assisted in getting the water to break completely. We were really hoping that this would move things in the right direction.

2am -6am - Tiff spent the next 4 hours transitioning from laying down and trying to sleep between contraction, and sitting on the birthing ball rotating her hips and trying to get the baby to move down. She was around 7cm dilated at her peak during this time. After much discussion about the lack of sleep and the exhaustion setting in, we began to discuss our options.

6am - The decision was made that her progress was not advancing as we had hoped after the water was broken but with her contractions continuing to get more and more unbearable, we decided to transport to the hospital and have an epidural inserted. This was a very big deal as contractions were very close and very intense so it was not a decision made lightly. After another exam we determined that she was somewhere between 6-7 cm dilated and we needed to do something to get her some relief. The baby just needs more time.

8am - Momma is resting quietly finally with very little pain. They treated her with an aggressive amount of epidural. This was necessary because of how far along she already was when we got to the hospital...we had to play some catch up.

So here we are now...8:42 am...31 hrs 42 minutes after this crazy journey began. I am more confident than ever that Mom will do fantastically and we will be meeting our baby sometime in the very near future...thanks to everyone for the prayers and the positive encouragement, we are getting it via text, email, and voicemail. Now I'm going to try and get some sleep.