Today is the Due Date - Labor was like...

Today is the day our lovely daughter (referred to in this blog as E) was supposed to arrive. Okay, well really it's the estimated delivery date (EDD) based off the last period I had. I'm really glad she arrived a week ago. It was snowing today, nasty and gross out. School was cancelled, the roads were muck. I couldn't imagine trying to head to the hospital in this condition!

My hometown paper also published a story about E's arrival after recognition of my alma mater spread through the blog sites back home. They even included a link back to the west-coast newspaper's spread at the bottom of the online version of the article. I got a letter from the alumni association and a magnet that read "Future Pirate" on it as well!

Pictures will follow, but here are a few notes about labor and delivery:
* My contractions did not start until 3am on the 31st of December, and I barely noticed them as anything special until they started to actually feel uncomfortable, by about noon.
* Walking made them worse, which was a sure sign that they were REAL and not "practice contractions" (Braxton Hicks).
* I felt a trickle around 2:30pm, and was unsure if I'd peed myself so I went to the bathroom about 3 times in a row until I couldn't pee anymore. I still felt the trickle, so I knew I'd sprung a leak.
* I called the L&D ward around 3:30 to let them know, and they said for me to come in for a checkup. Expecting I'd just be sent back home, I didn't make snacks for Dev or pack the books we were going to read while waiting for labor to really get going.
* By the time we arrived at around 4:15, my contractions were 1 1/2 to 2 minutes apart and I was 4cm dilated. They admitted me at about 5:30.
* Things progressed quickly. The nurse anesthetist was called in to do my epidural at about 7:00. It took her six attempts because apparently, if you do a lot of situps, it makes the epidural space (between the vertebrae) very tight. My poor husband was holding me in position for the big needle, but after the third or fourth attempt, he started feeling funny and needed to sit down, so a nurse took over.
* The midwife broke the secondary bag of waters (yes, there are two layers) after the epidural kicked in because that makes contractions get serious in a hurry. I felt warm water gushes periodically with each contraction after the initial "sploosh." It was hard not to be grossed out.
* I had to get a "booster" in the epidural IV around 9:30 or 10:00 because the contractions had begun to feel like they did before I got the epidural in. Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the drug but I'm sure it was some variant of morphine. I could still feel the contractions but they felt like pressure rather than pain.
* At around 11:45, they told me to start pushing. It really does feel like you need to poop, as I was told. You have to hold your breath and push in 10-second intervals, usually three pushes grouped together.
* At 12:33am on January 1, 2008, E entered the world as the first baby of the New Year in our county.

I cannot express to you the feelings I had. Neither can my husband. He did not cut the cord. However, since the baby's sex was a surprise, we got the opportunity to announce it to the birthing room once she came out. It was just amazing. And it all went super fast compared to most rookie mommies. That's why the nurses called me a "Rock Star" during the labor and delivery. That plus the extended epidural effort, I suppose. But if you want something bad enough, you'll endure most anything to get it.

More to follow as time permits. She is awake and alert and ready to have dinner now, so I gotta run.