Isaac has arrived!!!!! :)

Isaac Thomas Shaffer was born on Sunday, July 11 at 2:20 AM! He was 21 inches long, and weighed 7 lbs. 12 oz. Childbirth was probably the best experience of my life!! I know I sound crazy but I really loved it! I started to get contractions at 4 AM on the 10th (Isaac's due date), and they started out at about 10 minutes apart. I had never had any braxton hicks contractions or any other kind of contractions before this, so I was thinking there is no way this is real labor. I didn't want to get my hopes up!! I didn't wake Thomas up or anything, I just kept timing them. My doctor told me to go to the hospital when they were 5 minutes apart. So Thomas left for work, and I just laid on the couch all day watching Heroes and timing my contractions. At around 4 pm they started to get to be around 5 or 6 minutes apart, but I didn't want to make Thomas come home from work if it wasn't the real thing. (He was in the middle of the company's Iron Man competition, and we really wanted him to win!!!) When the contractions started coming at 4 minutes apart I called Thomas and told him to come home. About a half hour later they kind of stopped and were really random. Sometimes 1 minute apart, sometimes 10 minutes apart. I realize now it was because I was so stressed that I took Thomas out of the competition for nothing, and I was really uptight! After he had been home for about an hour, I decided to eat something and relax. That's when the contractions were about every minute!! They were almost non stop! So we grabbed everything we needed and headed to the hospital. When we got there I was already in active labor. I was 100% effaced and 6 cm dilated! I was so excited!! My doctor happened to be out of town that weekend LOL, so we got the on call doctor, who I liked a lot! I was expecting to be in MUCH more pain than I was from hearing all of the horror stories. Contractions hurt, but each one made me soooo happy because I knew Isaac would be here very soon!!!! At around 7 cm I got an epidural, which slowed everything down a little bit. This was probably around 9 pm. It was an amazing epidural though, i could feel a little bit of pain, which is what I wanted so I could push. At around 1 AM I was fully dilated, and was ready to push! I pushed for about an hour and a half, however it went by really fast and it didn't seem that long at all! When I saw Isaac for the first time I couldn't believe that he was really inside of me for 9 months and that I had just pushed him out! It was very surreal! And he was so cute!!!
We stayed at the hospital for 2 more days. Overall, it was a wonderful experience, and I am so blessed that the pregnancy and birth went so perfect!!! Isaac is 1 month old now, and is the cutest little guy ever!!! He is getting nice and chubby too!