I witnessed the birth of my best friend's baby girl on August 14.

I'll try and keep it short and sweet, but it was one of the longest nights of our lives.

At about 7PM on August 13, I got the text message from my best friend. It's time!!! Her water broke after some Evening Primrose Oil and a swim at the pool. I went home and changed into clothes I'd be comfortable sleeping in and being in for who knows how long, then made the 45 minute drive to the hospital.

As soon as I got there, I was greeted by her Father In Law, and we walked back to Labor & Delivery together. I'd never met him before but he did seem to have the same attitude as her husband, who can be difficult to get along with.

I set my camera and my purse down in the room and she's doing laps up and down the hall of the hospital, trying to move labor along while she's still able to walk.

The hours pass, and her contractions get more intense, so we make our way back to the room. Since her water had broken, the nurse didn't want her to birth in the tub which was her reasoning for choosing this hospital, and she was pretty upset about that. They did allow her in the shower to let the hot water help her muscle pains. Her husband left to get Slurpees for the both of us and came back later. I told him that she was in the bathroom and expected him to be in there with her until she came out, but he came out just a few minutes later saying that it was too hot. He sat in the recliner in the corner of the room, his father at a table with a chair next to him, and they passed his phone back and forth, laughing and sharing stories from The Onion.

Mama to be comes out of the bathroom, the nurse helps her put on the mesh undies to hold the baby monitoring devices at her hips, and she lays in the hospital bed in a considerable amount of pain since she got out of the shower. She really wanted to be in the birthing tub, but they wouldn't let her.

The hours pass. The contractions get more intense. By 11PM she's in tears because the pain is getting intense. The doctor checks her cervix and she's only at a 3. They offer her Fentanyl at 11:40 and tell her that they can give her this every hour on the hour, because it doesn't stay in your system for very long. Unfortunately, this also stops being effective after about the second or third shot.

She hangs in there through the contractions, and the minutes pass slowly on the clock. We start perineal massage, first the nurse, and then I look to her husband to see if he's gonna step up and help her out. He's still laughing at stuff on The Onion, totally ignoring his wife as she delivers her first baby (his second, through a previous relationship) so I move over to his side of the hospital bed, between him and his wife, and try my best to massage her through the contractions and encourage her to keep it up, you're doing great, keep breathing, relax any muscle you can, etc.

She's sobbing through the pain now, the first shot wore off. I look at the clock and it's 12:45, so it's past the hour that we had to wait to get another shot. I take a moment and step into the hall to ask the nurse to come give her the second dose of Fentanyl. She's got it in her hand and she's chatting it up with a few of the other nurses, while my friend screams and cries in pain. I noted the time, that it's been over an hour, please can you come give her the shot?! She takes her sweet old time.

I take my post next to her and keep massaging her, having no idea if I'm helping at all because she's still crying and showing no signs of relief whatsoever. Then she pulls out her phone and starts texting me as I'm standing next to her.

She's extremely pissed that her husband has been ignoring her and hasn't been the slightest hint of helpful this entire time. He slowed her down in the walk from the car to the hospital because he didn't want to run, so she had to wait outside longer than she wanted to. He wouldn't stay in the bathroom with her while she was in pain in the shower because it was "too hot" and of course, this entire time we've been at the hospital, which for her is now 6 hours, he's practically ignored her. He got her a Slurpee, and the rest of his time has been spent giggling at The Onion with his dad. She has never felt so uncared for and alone, and she'd almost rather him go home because he's being absolutely useless here. He won't even hold her hand, he hasn't said a peep of encouragement to help her through the contractions... nothing...

One of their friends shows up, who is more of a friend to the husband than my friend, and he joins in giving all his attention to the husband and his phone. I forgot that I had her husband's number, but I did have his buddy's number, so I texted him and said, hey, can you say something to him and subtly let him know that he needs to stop ignoring his wife? She'd really appreciate if he would come hold her hand. Or even say that he loves her, she's doing great, whatever.

It looks like he passes that message to UselessHusband, but nothing happens. A couple more contractions come and go. I text him again. Then I do see his name in my contacts, and text the husband directly. They still ignore her. So I verbally ask him to trade me spots. He sits on the right side of the bed on a little stool, and resumes looking at his phone, silently. No hand holding. Not a peep to her. She finally caves in, after not wanting to start any drama in front of an audience, and calls him out on it. It's maybe 1:30 and her shot has already worn off, so she's in a high amount of pain, and she wanted to resist the epidural if possible, so she's at her wit's end.

Crying, she asks him why he won't hold her hand. Instead of just reaching out and grabbing her hand, he goes into attitude mode and asks "do you even think that would help?" I'm appalled. She said "It's not about pain relief, it's about feeling like my husband gives a crap that I'm in pain! You don't care! You've ignored me this whole time and you've been basically useless! You haven't said any encouragement, you haven't done anything!" He looked pissed off because he was being confronted about being useless. I think I asked him something like "please just hold her hand" and his dad pulled me and husband's friend out of the room so they could argue.

Then husband's father and friend gang up on me. "You don't know him, you don't know how he is" (Yes, yes I do, I hear endless ranting about how he's an ass when he's drunk, he gets mean, he makes her cry, he's unsupportive, he ignores her, etc, and I've spent my fair share hanging out with them, so yes I freaking know him, as if it's not painfully obvious right now) "That's just not who he is, he isn't like that, he doesn't like to be confronted and it makes him angry, he doesn't like to be told what to do, blah blah blah" Well... newsflash.... we're here for the birth of his wife's first child. I don't give a crap if he's happy, and I don't give a crap if HE wants to hold her hand, SHE needs it - and if he can't fake being supportive for another few hours, then she made a mistake in marrying him. Even just holding her hand and not saying a word while he keeps reading The Onion would have been huge to her. An occasional "I love you." But no.

We wait in the hall and hash it out over the fact that the ONLY person whose comfort and happiness we should be caring about right now is the woman who carried and created a human being for the last 38 weeks, who will now be pushing that human being out of her body through a hole that is normally a fraction of the size it will stretch to, through hours of extremely intense contractions. I don't give a crap if her husband is "uncomfortable" holding her hand. A nurse comes over and asks us what's up, and I let them know that mama to be really didn't want to get an epidural, but the pain medication they were giving her isn't doing hardly anything to help, and she's having a rough time due to an unsupportive husband, father in law, and husband's friend, so they may want to ask her to reconsider that epidural so she can relax before she absolutely loses her mind. She needs rest and comfort, and even if her husband ignores her, this night will be a lot easier if she can get some sleep since she's been up almost a full 24 hours at this point.

The nurse steps into the room and closes the door behind her. My friend IMMEDIATELY asks for the epidural without hesitation, so I'm glad I sent the nurse in. Husband's friend and father whisper amongst themselves outside the door while I sit a little farther down the hall. Husband's friend and I used to date but I broke it off because he was extremely possessive and controlling, and jealous, and I just couldn't handle it. He still has feelings for me. He walks over and says he's going to get some breakfast, can he get me anything? He's trying to apologize, show that he's sorry and that he knows we should all be focusing on the woman giving birth, but I'm livid and I ignore him. He leaves for about an hour. Father in law goes to work early in the morning because he's a sanitation worker, so he drops in again before leaving and apparently also talked some sense into UselessHusband about what I was saying - that she needs him, and he needs to man up. I go into the room after they've given her the epidural and check on her. She's feeling so much better, wishing she would have gotten the epidural a lot sooner so she could calm down and not lose her cool at her husband. They don't appear to be fighting anymore, but he's not holding her hand or standing by her. Apparently he held her hands during the epidural and that was enough. He took his spot back in the corner of the room in silence. She's watching Fresh Prince of Bel-Air on TV and kind of falling asleep. Her husband starts snoring.

His buddy comes back and says how full he is, sits down at the table where husband's dad was at, lays down and promptly falls asleep.

The time now is about 2:30AM. I could have sat in the other chair at the table to sleep, but that's a seat between my ex and her husband and I wouldn't have been able to sleep. I set up fort on the floor at the foot of her bed, texting her friend that would have been here if she wasn't living in another state about the events of the night. I'm extremely uncomfortable on the hard floor, but it's not about me and I'll deal with it.

A nurse comes in to check her at 4AM. She says that mama is at a 9 now that she relaxed, and it's time to push.I send another text to her out of state friend about that, and then we're asked to sit in the hall since the doctor was only going to allow mama and her husband in the room even though I was supposed to be there. I'm a little bummed out but I leave the room.

I sit in an extra room down the hall and wait. Husband's friend walks in and apologizes, asks if I'm okay, and I basically ignore him. All I want to do is listen for those baby cries. I sit and wait, on the verge of falling asleep since he turned off the light in the waiting room, and a nurse walks in at 6 and said "your friend had her baby!"

I jump out of my seat and walk briskly down the hall back to her room, and there's the little bundle of joy being weighed and getting her footprint taken. I ask my friend how she's doing, she's doing great. I take photos of the footprints, of the beautiful baby girl, and show mama what's going on since she's across the room and can't quite see. I tell her good job and we get the info about the baby girl so I can text her friend in Washington with the update. 5 pounds, 11 ounces, born at 6AM on the dot, 18.5 inches long, and she cried when she was born but now she is completely calm and curious. She hardly cries, but she's wonderful, pink, healthy, breathing, trying to open her eyes in the dimly light room that must seem extremely bright. A very calm baby!

They pass her around the room. I start snapping photos since the photographer she was going to have do the newborn photos couldn't get here in time. Their grandma shows up with husband's daughter from the previous relationship who is just absolutely delighted about her "baby sisser" and get their first family photo. Then they escort husband, I follow with his older daughter and grandparents, and they give her a bath. I hang out with the little girl and show her what's going on and explain why daddy is doing what he is. Then they take mama back to her recovery room out of L&D, and they kept the baby for a little monitoring. I stay with them to make sure they're all settled and help with little things like getting crackers to munch on, getting juice for the older child, etc, and when they're ready to relax I drive the 45 minutes home, after about 36 hours of being awake, and I slept so hard I didn't notice my fiance snuggle up to me when he came home on lunch.

All in all, their baby girl is happy and healthy, and it seems that the husband has stepped up a bit to be a more supportive dad in the last 8ish weeks, occasionally taking her by himself overnight so mama can sleep and stuff, and she genuinely seems happier in her marriage. I just found out that I myself am 6 weeks pregnant, and she's delighted that she can coach me through all of it since it's still fresh on her mind.

There you have it!

TL;DR Mama didn't want an epidural, husband was a total jerk and ignored her, contractions and stress were too much for her to do unmedicated, after the epidural, baby was delivered at 6AM happy and healthy.