induced but natural??

yes. i'm done with the pregnancy. pictures later, as i'm sitting quietly in a hospital bed right now, with our sleeping beauty laying close by.
yesterday, tuesday, at 4 pm, I came to the hospital to be induced. by 6 oclock, they had me on pre-induction drug to get me ready for the pitocin (the drug that actually causes contractions). I was on the pre drug for 12 hours. I noticed uncomfortable contractions about every....so often. Enough to not sleep through, but apparently, according to the nurse at 5:45, not enough to do. anything. Nothing had changed over 12 hours. I was bummed. By 6:30, I got up and took a shower and at 7 had a new nurse who, I believe was a saint woman. She didn't make me get pitocin right away, instead she said, lets wait for the dr., why don't you just walk around, drink your clear liquids, and such instead. My dr. came. She checked me. It was 8 by then. She broke my water and said I was dialated to a 4 and mostly effaced (sorry for those of you who think that's too much info). So, unless my body shut down, no pitocin. They let me walk the halls and do the medicine ball, the entire time on the ball, my nurse, Debbie, talked me through the pain and how to work with it. Thanks to my husband for listening to me and not touching me during pain, by the way.
By 10:30, the pain was bad and I asked how far along I was. She checked. A 5. I was discouraged and said I wanted an epidural. So I went to the bathroom, had a contraction, layed in bed, and while she was giving me the IV solution for the epidural, I had 4 more contractions that dialated me to a 10 in 25 minutes. Ouch. blinding pain. And then I said, I'm pushing. No dr. in the house. No anything, as they were not ready for that fast. My dr. arrived 2 minutes before the birth (she ran out on a patient from across the road). It was so fast, when the baby came, even I was shocked as I expected it to be longer. She was born at 11:10 ish (11:08, by my book). This is about 5 hours after the other nurse had said, 'no progress.' So, needless to say, it was a natural birth that was started with medication and finished by yours truly. I'm still shocked by the level of pain that made me completely oblivious to everything but my nurse's calm and collected and reassuring voice.
So, I have another daughter. She was 20.5 inches long and 7lbs 8 oz. and already eats like a horse. She has short blond hair and when I see her body to change a diaper it is bright red because of all the screaming. She doesn't like her diaper being changed. Little miss A saw her sister tonight and just smiled in awe and wonder. Then she smiled and awed in wonder at the many cool things to see at a hospital.