To start things out, I have a pretty small frame. When I got pregnant I only weighed 84 pounds. At the end of my pregnancy I weighed roughly 115. It was a serious amount of weight gain for me, and I was trying my hardest to produce a healthy baby. Little Lucy was, however, a very big surprise. I was only 19 years old (only a month away from turing 20) and had been with my fiancé for less than a year and here I was pregnant. It was basically the scariest shit of my entire life.

In any case, I go into my last obstetrical appointment. I'm supposed to be wrapping up this whole pregnancy thing and awaiting for my labor to start at any moment. Conveniently enough, my appointment is a day before my due date. After an ultrasound to assess the baby's status (things like weight heart rate) it was concluded that my daughter only weighed about 6 pounds and 2 ounces, which made the doctors fairly concerned as I was 40 weeks and she had not grown much since my last appointment. I was then told that I would be admitted to L&D for a stress test to make sure everything was okay. If everything was, I could go home and I would be induced the following Tuesday (it was currently a Friday). If not, I was having my baby that night.

Well, needless to say my daughter's heart rate dropped dramatically while being monitored, which ensured that I was not leaving the hospital again without a baby in tow. I was a mess of tears at the suddenness of it all. It was all becoming a very harsh reality and my weeks of brooding and stressing over the horror of labor loomed in my face. But my fiancé and essentially all of my family were right by my side, being as supportive and comforting as they could be. I seriously have a kick-ass support system.

At this point I was formally admitted, hooked up to a heart monitor, restricted to a diet of ice chips, and informed by my doctor that they would begin Pitocin at 6 AM. I opted to have an epidural placed at the same time as the start of the Pitocin and I do not regret that decision in the least. It was a pretty painless ordeal, and other than the shivers that it caused for the entire duration of the 6 hour labor, I only felt my contracts briefly. I went from 2 cm to 10 cm in around five hours. My water was broken by the doctor and I could tell that my daughter had dropped. It was time to have this baby.

With my fiancé on one side and my mother on the other, I pushed for a straight hour, operating on 30 minutes of sleep in a near 30 hour period and convinced that I was going to die from exhaustion before I could push her out. I had to have an episiotomy (which was probably the worst part about the whole thing as it was painful and swollen for a week after delivery), but she had been born and it was finally over. What came as a surprise was her actual weight, which was 6 pounds and 5 oz. She was 18 inches long. All ten fingers and all ten toes. Strawberry blonde hair and a birthmark on the top of her head. She was and still is the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen.

We only stayed in the hospital for three days after delivery. She passed her hearing test with flying colors. Every nurse doted on how beautiful she was. We had her picture made in the in-hospital studio. It was a whirlwind of emotion and love.

Now, I'm on the brink of turning 21. My daughter is almost 4 months old and she is doing swell. Lucille "Lucy" Rose is the light of my life and I treasure her every day.