The First Six Weeks

Six weeks ago today, I was in labor. It was snowing, and I refused to believe I would actually have to be out in that nastiness on my way to deliver. And yet... here we are.


Things I have learned over the past six weeks include...


During Delivery

• People will come in and out of your room without announcing their presence
• People will be all up in your va-jay-jay without introducing themselves
• People will continue to ask you questions even though you do not have the presence of mind to attend to them AND to the labor contractions... and you're more likely to attend to the latter

After Birth

• Despite being SO incredibly tired, you might just not be able to sleep for the excitement of meeting this little person you've been waiting to cuddle
• You might not get many visitors... and that's okay
• ...and if it's not okay, if you had your baby at the hospital, there are plenty of staff to be in and out of your room all day and night

Coming Home

• By the third child, it feels like that baby was always there; you just have to reconsider sleeping arrangements
• Your newbie's siblings may fall instantly in love... or they might willfully ignore the fact that the n00b is here
• Your eldest might tell the (now) middle child that she loves the baby more than him
• The (now) middle child might tell you that he wishes the baby would die
• You might cry because of these things

The First Two Weeks

• ...well, they absolutely still suck. Even though baby #3 feels totally like he's always been there, the adjustment to poor sleep and frequent feedings takes a lot out of you
• ...and a lot out of your partner, who is picking up the slack around the house for everything else you can't do now that nearly 100% of your time involves having an infant hanging off your breast or being up to your elbows in mustardy-poop
• You are likely to have less patience with each other, and with your other kids
• You might decide it's best to have daddy sleep elsewhere in the house so he can get a good night's sleep and not be the devil-parent (someone has to be nice, at least)
• You might really miss each other
• Your breasts hurt like a sonofabitch - you realize you forgot that the "natural" breastfeeding isn't exactly, like, naturally easy to do
• You might have experienced engorgement, a lump, and the desperation of trying to keep baby awake long enough during a feeding to squeeze out that painful milk backlog
• Your partner may offer an ice cube to wake up baby, and it becomes a running joke ("Want an ice cube?")

The Second Two Weeks (weeks 3 and 4)

• Ah, adjustment! You are finding your groove
• You discover this growing person also has a little personality
• You understand his language, know his sleepy cry from his hungry cry, and his likes and dislikes
• He likes, for example, to be near you - and has started to coo when you talk to him
• He can see a teeny bit farther and knows which blurry blobs are his parents and siblings
• You may feel adventurous enough to go on outings
• Your breasts are starting to feel semi-normal again... except that they are at least twice the size they used to be and you can't wear many of your "regular" shirts
• Your maternity pants are too big, and your regular pants are too small.... ah, sweatpants will do (preferably with drawstring)

The Third Two Weeks (weeks 5 and 6)

• My word, he smiled at you! The real kind, not the gassy kind
• And thank goodness he smiles and is so cute, or otherwise you'd probably hate him because he's decided to eat and sleep on some crazy new schedule you haven't figured out yet
• And you realize that his love of cuddling with you extends now to only sleeping when you are holding him, and that he wakes when you put him down
• You'd really like to go pee without bringing the baby along
• Or eat lunch without worrying about dropping food on him while he dozes in your lap
• Oh, and you have to go back to work next Monday, which reminds you that you need to pump
• And your partner isn't back in your bed yet because nobody trusts that this baby is going to sleep in his own space without disturbing the whole house
• But at least the (now) middle child has warmed up enough that he kisses baby goodnight
• And you might have figured out that he needs to sleep on your dirty clothes in the crib to have your smell on him
• And despite all of this, you're still sad that the convalescent-getting-to-know-you time is almost over already

So we're on the eve of his 6 weeks birthday. And I am both extremely happy and terribly sad, as patient as a saint and as frustrated as humanly tolerable, alert and exhausted. This is motherhood.

"Get Out" - T's Birth Story

This is the story of our little monster-baby, T, and his arrival to "the outside."


Wednesday, 4 March
I rescheduled my 40-week appointment to today (one day earlier than originally planned) because of the threat of snow. Like, a lot. They were saying 6-12 inches. I pretty much knew school would be canceled, and if they closed the clinic, my appointment would be canceled. So, I wanted to be seen. I had a membrane sweep done. This was against Hubby's better judgment. Maybe I should have listened, but then again... maybe it was for the best that I just went for it. I was 3cm (and could stretch to 4 cm) dilated, but not effaced. Went on about my business.


Thursday, 5 March
This was quite a day, so I'll break it down into a timeline.

• 2:30am - Was awakened by a painful contraction. But, it was alone, so I went back to sleep.
• 10:00am - Started having more contractions. Or, at least, I noticed I was having more. Downloaded an app on my phone to track them. They were ranging from 30-60 seconds in length, and were all over the place in terms of interval. Seven minutes, then 15 minutes, then 5 minutes, then 20 minutes apart. Also, they weren't painful or seeming to grow more consistent.
• Mid-day - Convinced by a friend's Facebook post that I, too, was having "prodromal labor," I continued timing these inconsistent contractions, not realizing they were doing something. Hubby was convinced we needed to at least alert people that "stuff" was happening.
• 4:15pm - Snow was everywhere. We had gotten about 7 inches by this time. We let the neighbors know we might have to go to the hospital, but I was still not 100% sure. However, I had another painful contraction at this point.
• 7:00pm - Hubs realizes we only have a quarter tank of gas and decides to see if he can creep to the nearest gas station on the un-plowed roads. Turns out, only our neighborhood was not plowed. The adjacent streets are snow emergency routes and are (relatively) clear. They'd been plowed before the snow had stopped, so there was still a bit of a mess to deal with. He gassed up the car and came back home.
• 7:45pm - Kids' bedtime routine, and I was still able to give baths and read a bedtime story, but was decidedly more aware of the contractions. They were getting into a more regular interval (between 5-7 minutes apart) and growing a little more painful.
• 8:45pm - Watching TV with the Hubs, and I got one of those contractions that made me get off the couch and hug the ottoman. Hubs was not exactly pleased, and he asked more directly if we needed to go to the hospital now. I was like, "Uh... I don't know. No?"
• 9:30pm - Hubs and I head to bed. He jokes, "Maybe I should sleep in my clothes." Then, he asked me, "So, exactly how close should they be before we go to the hospital?" I momentarily suffer from amnesia and tell him (between contractions) to Google it. By this point, they are lasting from about 45-60 seconds and are about 2-3 minutes apart.
• 10:00pm - Hubs calls Labor and Delivery to let them know what's up and to find out if they are on deferral (and if we need to go to a different hospital). When they ask about my contractions, the on-call nurse says, "Uh, you should have left already." Got the stink-eye from Hubs. He texts our neighbor to ask her to come spend the night with the kids. She doesn't respond, so he heads over to their house and gets his feet wet in the snow because it came over his shoes.
• 10:05pm - Neighbor arrives, Hubs changes shoes, and we go.
• 10:30pm - Arrive to hospital. I am wheeled (in a wheelchair) to L&D because walking has begun to make me angry. Plus, I wasn't sure I would make it down the long hallways to get to L&D without having to stop every few feet to contract.
• 11:00pm - I am checked, baby's HR is good, my contractions are monitored, and I am dilated somewhere between 4-5 cm and effacing (but not totally there yet). I'm asked whether I want to be admitted at first, and then encouraged to be admitted but to walk around. But I won't be allowed to leave the room for some kind of liability reasons, so it's just walk around the room. I groan, probably from a contraction, but also probably from bureaucracy.
• Sometime before midnight - I am given a room and connected to monitors again. I hate continuous monitoring. Hate it.

Friday, 6 March
Most of these times are estimates. I only know for sure the last time listed. I was a little too busy to attend to the clock much on the rest.

• A little after midnight - I alert Hubs to the monitor screen and show him "TOCO." When TOCO goes up, I go berserk. TOCO is monitoring the contractions. When it is around 20, I'm okay. When it goes up above 50, I am unhappy. TOCO was pinging 100+ by now.
• 12:45am - The anesthesiologist shows up to get my consent for epidural and general anesthesia if needed. I humor him a little, but I let him know I had no intention of having any meds. He's persistent, however, so I hold up my "wait" finger during a particularly owwie contraction. I want to hold up a different finger. Hubs knows it. He is smiling behind eager anesthesiologist's back. Finally, I am able to scrawl some semblance of a signature on the "just in case" form.
• 1:15am - TOCO is going over 200 now. And it gets back to maybe 50 before going up again. I'm not getting a break anymore. The nurses are in awe (apparently, and according to Hubs) because I'm coping like a champ. A crowd gathers. They expect it will be any time now. But... it's not happening fast enough, and I can see people starting to leave after a few minutes. I get discouraged but can't really share my feelings.
• 1:45am - They get me on my back (which I hate) to check me. The OB on duty asks, "If I can get to it, do you want me to break your water?" I think I say yes. In my head, I say yes. Bad news, though... meconium in the water. My risk level just went up.
• 1:50am - I am allowed to be on my hands and knees. Grateful for the position change, I now feel like it's push time. And I start to push. And, oops! Poop. I apologize, but everyone says not to worry and keep doing my thing.
• 2:00am - Baby's HR is dropping to the 120s during contractions now. People are unhappy with that. They want me to roll back over on my back and start grabbing my legs. So, I do. And, oops! Poop again. I am screaming "Get OUUUT" at this point. I'm not sure why he hasn't been born yet. It should be easy with the third, right?
• 2:05am - Feels like I've been pushing forever. But it's only been a few times. They've put me on oxygen by now (might have happened a little bit before now). The OB says she needs to get out the vacuum. Baby needs out.
• 2:10am - The vacuum going in has a certain "wrong direction-ness" to it that I can't explain. Everything in me is like, "Nope. This is ebb tide, y'all. No swimming to shore." I think I protest about this somehow, but I might be sounding like a blithering idiot at this point. I'm not exactly lucid. I haven't opened my eyes in the last ten minutes at least. It's too much stimulation.
• 2:15am - I'm pushing, and pushing, and pushing. They fuss because I keep grunting during my pushes, when I should be holding my breath and using all the musculature in my body to get the baby out. I finally manage to get three or four in a row without grunting.
• 2:17am - He's out. Along with lots of shit-water. Hubs is grossed out. He says the boy is a "literal shithead" because his own fecal matter is all up in his hair. And he's pretty much brown all over.... until they clean him off.

It felt like forever, that they had him, working on him and helping him breathe. He cried when he emerged, but it was a sputter. They were concerned he may have aspirated the meconium, which can lead to a serious lung infection. They did suction, then deep suction. "Neonatal resuscitation" is on his chart. His APGAR scores were 6/8 because of low HR, poor color, poor motor response, and something else I can't quite recall.


When I finally got him (which was only like 20-30 minutes later, but it felt like FOREVER), he immediately latched like a champ and nursed. I still had no stats on this boy other than the time of his birth. I kept asking and no one was listening. After I'd been stitched up (because a vacuum-assisted birth does a real number on the nether regions), I was assisted to the bathroom. The nurse who took baby T from me said she'd weigh him. She and a resident commented that he felt like an eight-pound-eight-ounce baby. While I was in the bathroom, Hubs hollered in, "So... remember how they said 8 lbs, 8 oz??" I was like, yeah. "Well, how 'bout more like, 9 lbs, 9 oz." My jaw dropped. T is officially 1.5 lbs bigger than his brother, who was 1.5 lbs bigger than our girl. If we kept going, we'd have an 11-pounder next time! Regarding length, still not accurate information. We are going with 20 inches because the resident who attempted to measure him said, "He's wiggly, but we'll call this 20 inches." He was 20.5" at his appointment 3 days later, so we're really not sure. Maybe this is a difference between first-child and subsequent-children? I might care more about really knowing this information, but I also might not. He's perfect. So who cares?


He had to be "stuck" a bunch of times because they were concerned about diabetes. His blood sugar was 46, 47, 55, and 49 on each of his four fasting glucose tests (his poor little heels!!) - and it had to be above 45 for him to get the green light. So, he passed. Pediatricians checked out his lungs several times. He passed his newborn audiology test. He threw up a bloody mess, and I got freaked out, but it turns out this is normal for babies to ingest some of the blood of delivery. Gross, right?


Anyway, this baby boy is amazing. He sleeps well during the day, and sometimes also at night. He loves to cuddle. He is quiet and doesn't really make much fuss. He hates a wet diaper but doesn't seem to care about a poopy one. He would rather sleep with me than in his bassinet, but I don't sleep when he's in bed with me. I've probably been feeding him 3-4 times a night, with cluster feeding at the front-end (for like 2 straight hours, from 10-midnight). Hubs has been sleeping on the couch so he can be a better dad to the other two, who are handling new siblinghood in their own special ways. Took J about 3 days to decide he would hold his brother. Took E about 5 seconds upon walking into my hospital room to ask if she could hold him. They are not the same kid after all.


He looks like a mash-up of both of them. Lips like sister, eyes like brother. Stork bite like sister, quiet calmness like brother. He is exactly the baby we need during this very stressful time in our lives!!

T, at 9 days of age

Minivan People

39 Weeks, 2 Days
Swiss Chard, or Watermelon
It had to happen. We have been sort of in denial that this baby is coming. Not in the, "I refuse to accept this is happening," sense of denial. More like the, "We still have time," type of denial. But here we are, less than 3 weeks away from the due date, which means we will very soon be in the "window" for delivery. Actually, at my last checkup, I was unceremoniously informed, "If labor were to start now, we wouldn't stop it."


So, what had to happen? This:

Sweet Ride

Yep. We're minivan people now.


Suffice it to say, if we ever were prideful about the type of car we drove, we swallowed it right quickly. We needed to be able to transport our entire family (including the yet unborn), and now we have the means to do so. Other than this, however, our level of preparedness is still shockingly low. We buy diapers here and there (when I have a coupon). We are cognizant of the fact that we need to wash some baby clothes, but haven't yet done so. I haven't packed a bag yet. For me or for the baby. We did, however, manage to arrange child care for the siblings. So, if I were to go into labor soon, we'd have no problem with kid coverage.


However, the Hubs has told me that we're not taking the new minivan to the hospital. Just in case we don't make it there in time. "No way are you ruining the leather in that brand new car," he said. Ha! Pride.

Midweek Update

35 Weeks, 4 Days
Still a bit like a Honeydew
Went to labor and delivery for a tour, and feel reasonably confident that I can have somewhat the birth I want. What made it better was I swung by the midwife's to check and see about getting some information on safely flipping a breech, and she offered a quick scan to see what's up with the dude. So... she asked me first where I thought he was. And I said, "Well, I think I feel a leg up here today," (and rubbed the top of my belly. She asked, "So, where's the head?" And I said I wasn't sure because I'd felt him being kind of sideways a couple times. So... she did an external exam and said, "I think it's here [indicating just above my pubic bone] - let's look!" And there was a round little noggin down there!! So, I don't have to do headstands off the couch or get in the pool to go upside down. Life is good. Now, here's hoping he stays put for a couple more weeks at least!!!

Ready or Not...

34 Weeks, 2 Days
Cantaloupe or Honeydew Melon


At somewhere between four and five pounds, and about 17-18 inches in length, my little dude is nearing full term. We're under six weeks out from the due date. His survivability outside the womb is steadily climbing every day, and we are now to the point where, if he were born today, he might spend a few days in a NICU but be otherwise healthy and have no differences in the long run from other kids who were born full term.


While this is such an amazing relief, and a great thing, I realize that I am not ready. We currently have no vehicle that can accommodate three children. We have no sleeping space set up for the baby. I have not packed a bag. We have no diapers or wipes. I have yet to locate my nursing bras and breast pads. I have no burp cloths. I haven't gotten out any baby clothes (or washed them). I haven't even done the tour of the Labor & Delivery unit at the hospital where I'll be delivering.


Part of the reason is the mentality that we've done this before, not our first rodeo, it's old hat, etc. Maybe we're just not worried about it. Part of the reason, however, is that I have simply been far too busy in the other areas of my life to sit down and prepare. I just asked my neighbor TODAY if she could cover down on my other two kids until my mother-in-law could get to us and watch them.


I'm still worried that he won't turn in time to deliver. I'm pretty sure his head is up here under my ribs. I'm pretty sure I've had at least three nightmares of C-sections gone wrong or my medical rights being violated. I'm worried that the hospital where I'll be delivering will do silly stuff like continuous fetal heart monitoring and making me lie still in bed, rather than labor how I want. This concern would likely cause me to stay at home for as long as possible, laboring where and how I want, before leaving... which potentially could lead me to delivering at someplace other than the hospital - like in the car on the side of the road.


This baby will come when he is ready, not when I am. He won't know or care if I am prepared. And that's fine. Because no matter what, we will suddenly be as ready as we'll ever be once he arrives.

Final Descent

33 Weeks, 3 Days
Honeydew Melon, or Pineapple
Ladies and gentlemen, we have begun our final descent into the universe. Please return your tray tables and seat backs to the upright and locked position.


I am, apparently, carrying "low" or the baby has "dropped" according to at least a half dozen friends and family members. Of course, as a short person, it only means that I can't feel my ribs expanding, like, EVERY SINGLE SECOND. The rib pain is just the worst to me. Of course, there's more pain coming from the ever-stretching (and probably not ever returning to normal) ligaments in my lower abdomen.


I've been a bit concerned that this baby hasn't turned himself around to be ready for landing. At my last appointment a couple of weeks ago, he was still head-up. I have had multiple nightmares about having to have a cesarean because he didn't turn around for delivery. I mean, surely there must be some way to convince an unborn to rotate, right? Well, according to Spinning Babies, yes... there are ways. So I will be trying some of the less intense ones, like putting an ice pack on top of my tummy and playing music by my pubic bone. I have my next appointment in a couple of weeks, so I'll see what the midwife says then.


I don't want to negate anyone's birth experience. But I am really wanting to avoid a c-section. In my dreams, the surgeons keep telling me there is no other option and that they will totally sedate me for the surgery. I get furious because not only am I not getting the birth I want, but I am totally taken out of the equation so that I cannot even see my baby enter the world. In fact, I am kind of the last person in the room to know he has arrived because I have to wake up from anesthesia. That means, no kangaroo care, no skin-to-skin, no immediate nursing, no chance to tell my baby that it's okay, I'm here. I cannot stress how much I really, REALLY do not want that to be how my son enters this world. I want him to know me, smell me, and know he is okay. Really, a sedated cesarean takes away literally ALL of the things I want in my birth plan. It makes me sad, and angry, and sad again.


I'm not ready for this baby, clearly, because I have not yet scheduled my tour of labor and delivery. I haven't delivered at this hospital before, and so it might be important to, y'know, find out more about it. Especially their policies, given my fear of surgical intervention. I need to know how long before they're like, "Okay, lady, we've let you labor for a while. Now it's our turn." I have to make the call.

Water Born: J's Birth Story

WARNING: Graphic content.

My due date based on LMP was 1 February.  They adjusted it after ultrasound to 3 February.  When these days came and went, I was exceedingly discouraged.  After all, my firstborn showed up at week 39!  Aren't second and later children supposed to come sooner?  Well, our little son J didn't come sooner, but he came faster than his big sister E.

I had been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for a few days, off and on.  With no real regularity and no increasing pain or intensity, I paid very little attention to them.  However, on Monday morning the 7th of February, something was different.  I was determined to encourage these contractions to grow.  We went for walks, ran errands, tried to stay busy.  By three in the afternoon I was starting to get agitated by disappointment.  Was this boy ever going to make an appearance?

I decided that the BH contractions might be getting more regular and, just for kicks, started timing them around 3:30 PM.  They were at first 12 minutes apart, lasting for maybe 45 seconds.  In the span of maybe 45 minutes, they had regulated to 5 minute intervals, lasting a minute each.  I called the L&D unit at about 4:30 to ask verification of when I should come in.  The nurse who answered said, "You still sound a little perky."  This is a classic sign that the nursing staff would be sending me right back home if I showed up right now.  She gave the criteria: 3-4 minutes apart lasting for at least a minute with very little break in between.  And painful (so I would not be "perky").  I told her I'd be there in an hour.  I'm pretty sure she laughed about me with the other nurses after hanging up.

We left for the hospital and arrived about 5:45 PM.  The nurse was surprised to see us.  Another nurse escorted us to a room for screening.  I had 2 contractions while trying to produce a urine sample.  I think I came up with maybe 15 mL.  Wonder what they could do with that?  Finally, finally, about 6:05 PM I had a cervix check, and I was told by the nurse, "You're a 4, and I can stretch it to 5.  100% effaced."  So we were admitted.

I endured yet another contraction while my dear husband searched for a room closer to the birthing tub (unfortunately the room right across the hall from it was occupied).  He found one right around the corner, not too far of a walk.  We then took the "stroll" to get in there.  Hubby got me a fitness ball to labor on because I was having a hard time being comfortable in any position and I knew I did not want to get on the bed.  Laboring on the birthing ball was nice because I could stretch out my legs and shorten the birth canal and rock back and forth.  Meanwhile, hubby massaged my hips and lower back during each contraction.

Around 8:30 PM, the on-duty OB came in for another check (they won't do it more frequently than every two hours).  She said she was a conservative in measuring and said 5 cm.  Could be 6.  Maybe.  I was like, "Really?  After 2 1/2 hours of all that, there was very little change!?"  This was in my head, of course, because I was unable to talk much.  I did ask for the ONE qualified midwife who does water birth to be notified.  She was not on duty but agreed to come in.  About that time, about 8:45, the water was ready.  And I was ready to be in it!  I was hoping for the relieving qualities I'd read about.

But, the untrained staff had overheated the water.  It was 110 degrees!  My legs were on fire, and I had to lean over the side while half-standing to wait for them to drain some hot water and put in some cold.  It had to get to 100 or lower.  95-97 degrees is preferred.  Contractions were coming like crazy by this point, and suddenly I said, "Oh, something's coming out!"  It was my bag of waters, slipping out of me.  My husband said it looked like my vagina blew a bubble.  And then it burst.  I said, "It's going to get bad in a hurry now!"  And it did.  They tried to do a cervix check on me then, and I couldn't move into a position favorable for them to do so.  I said, "It's getting really hard not to push."  I was trying every breathing technique I could think of.  Probably the hardest physical thing to do in the world is resist the urge to push.  They told me I had to get out of the tub.  The midwife would not make it before the baby would.  Someone (bless their soul) called her anyway and she told them she could be there in 10 minutes and to let me stay in the water.

Ten minutes.  Is.  Forever.

She arrived after what felt like an eternity of panting and puffing to avoid bearing down, and I was still holding out while she got her "goop gear" on.  She turned to me and said, "You can push if you feel the urge."  I said, "Oh, thank God."  And I did.  Between contractions, she checked and said, "Oh the head is right there."  Maybe two or three inches from the outside world.  I had gone from a "conservative 5 cm" to ready to rock in a half hour!

In perhaps 15 minutes (about 5 contractions with 2-3 pushes each), our son J entered the water at 9:50 PM.  The umbilical cord was around his neck one time so he was under water longer than typical to get the cord off his head.  He came up to the surface, and I grabbed him from the midwife and said, "My baby!"  I cuddled him up to me and he opened his eyes to look around.  He was beautiful and perfect.  He was finally here!

I had originally said my main reason for not getting drug intervention this time (aside from the side effects) was because with my firstborn, the pain meds had worn off and I felt everything anyway.  This is not entirely correct.  There were residual effects of the pain medicine then because this time I truly felt everything.  I admit... I am thankful for my very short time in labor.  However, I can also say with certainty that the ongoing uterine contractions during the first few days postpartum is worse than the labor and birth.  At least in labor you are progressing toward a goal - to have a baby.  While having a nice, firm uterus postpartum is important (reduced risk of hemhorrage, getting back to a non-pregnant state faster, reducing the hormone storm, etc.), it isn't quite the momentous achievement of birth.

Because my Week 38 Group B Strep test came back positive, I was supposed to have two doses of IV antibiotics administered over 4 hours to help little J enter the world without risk of infection.  Because we were at the hospital for less than 4 hours before he arrived, we obviously didn't make the cut.  So we had to stay longer in the hospital than we wanted.  But... how amazing a ride!  A boy who was determined to stay put for as long as he wanted in utero made a decision and acted on it without a degree of hesitation... when it was time to leave, he left expeditiously!

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.