And Finally, A Brief Birth Story (for Posterity)

I was induced with Gwen, took FOREVER to progress even on Pitosin, and went from mild, crampy pains to sudden excruciating pain when my water broke completely. Even then, I was still only a 4.

So at my wed dr appointment for Caroline when the doc told me I was almost a 4, I really began to wonder what to expect. I had been having contractions off and on for over a week. Nothing consistent. I certainly didn't want to have our lil one arrive suddenly at home, so on Thursday when my contractions became more regular, we decided to go in to the hospital.

We packed Gwen up for an overnight at a friend's house (which she was stoked about, as you can see), and realized we didn't have a prego pic of me, so we took one. You can see from my face that I'm pretty comfortable. Yeah, my contractions were definitely there, but not too painful. Just crampy feeling like I had on the Pitosin with Gwen.

The hospital deflated us. I wasn't progressing. They told us to walk around for an hour and come back. We did. Let me assure you, the hospital did not design a nice path for pregnant ladies to help their labor along. We were off roading it. Came back, got checked again. Contractions were super close together... for about 15 minutes... then they tapered off again. At 9:30 pm the hospital sent us home. While they admitted we'd probably be back around 2 am, they didn't want us to wait around there, I guess.

We picked up Gwen, ordered a consolation pizza, and I prepared myself for what I thought would be a long, increasingly uncomfortable night with a delivery in the early morning on a night of little sleep. I was pretty bummed.

But, tender mercies abound, and sometime around midnight I fell asleep. Woke up at 5 am with absolutely NO contractions. I wondered about false labor, etc, etc, still having no real concept of what to expect.

Between 6:30 and 7:30 I had 2 contractions. Much stronger than the day before, but clearly not a regular pattern. 7:30 they all the sudden picked up the pace and became quite painful. We packed Gwen up, dropped her off at the same friend's house (thanks, guys!), and arrived at the hospital by 8:30 am. I was pained, but still worried that this wasn't the real deal and that they would send me home again. I was relieved to hear that I was almost a 7. They got us a room right away.

Got an epidural, hung out with Eric making phone calls and updating everyone. Started pushing around 10:30. There was miconium in my water, so they called up specialists in case she inhaled any. Also, her blood pressure was dropping with each push (which made me nervous because I was worried about her health but did NOT want to have a C-section after all that work I'd already done!) so we wanted to get her out quickly. OB told me that it would have been easier, probably could have gotten her out in 2 pushes, if she had not been posterior (facing front instead of back). Her forehead kept running into my pelvis. She wasn't coming out. Tried the suction cup, but eventually just helped me out with a healthy episiotomy. After that, she popped right out. No need to worry bout the inhalation of miconium, she was born bawlin and kept it up for a solid 15 minutes.

After a couple minutes of skin to skin, tried nursing. And she took right to it. Nursed for an hour. Yes, an hour. What a blessing, especially in contrast to how much Gwen HATED it!

The nurses and staff kept congratulating us on our speed. Apparently there were 18 other women in labor that morning. I was the last to arrive and the first to deliver. Go us!

So, in summary, hard labor started around 7:30, arrived at the hospital at 8:30, started pushing around 10:30, had Caroline at 10:53. Not a bad labor and delivery, I'd say!