Friday morning (10/5/12) I was scheduled for an induction, and it was the only day my midwife was going to be there. I get a call minutes before leaving for the hospital (we live 30 minutes away) that there was a rush of ladies in 'real labor' and that they didn't have time for me. This first nurse was a bitch and made me want to cry. I was told to call back later to see if they had room.

Check back late afternoon? Nope. On their second round of ladies and babies. Same bitchy nurse informed me that it was a 'don't call us, we'll call you' situation. Alrighty then.

Around 11 PM SO convinces me to call again, and I get a different nurse. Nice nurse is surprised with how I was treated, was not given any info to call me if they had room (really hate the first nurse by now). She takes my phone # and info and writes my name on top of the list all the nurses apparently get when figuring out who to call next. SO and I have a quietly romantic evening together with lots of video games, and go to sleep.

Around eight AM SO and I are still laying in bed talking, he's going to get up in a few to get ready for work while I spend another day being hopelessly pregnant, when ohmygosh. My phone rings.

The nurse says we've got 45 min-1 hour to get down to the hospital and try inducing. Now I'm not gonna lie, ladies; it was really rough at the end. My SO was sad and disappoint (at the circumstances, not at me or the baby), our friends and family and coworkers were incredulous that I hadn't had the baby yet, and I was a miserable spherical heap of pregnancy hormones and pain. But when I hung up the phone and told my wonderful SO "okay, we've gotta be down to the hospital by nine because they have room," we were both smiling and excited. I hadn't seen such a huge grin on his face in over a week.

He called his boss and BFF while I made breakfast. I showered, called my parents, almost burnt breakfast, and my dad gave me some sage advice in the midst of his not-yet-awake reply: "If they offer you painkillers, take 'em." We grabbed the hospital bag and laptops, completely forgot about the carseat, and were on our way. Next time we'll have a checklist by the door.

Get to the hospital, get checked in, and shown to our room. It was classy and felt like a hotel room. I was a little iffy on the nurse, but she proved to be nice, just a little in-my-face but I ended up needing that later. We wait for half an hour for the midwife, and it turns out that it's the same midwife who saw me when I thought my water broke a few weeks previous. She was SO AWESOME, and the only weird thing was that her appearance and voice were exactly like one of my SO's sisters (he even agreed), so I can't look that SIL in the face anymore without mistakenly thinking that she's seen my ladyparts. But I really really loved this midwife, and our hospital for employing her. She checks me, decides I'm 4cm and 65% effaced, and after hearing about how we'd been in the hospital for strong contractions multiple times and I'd been having them a lot lately, decides to give me an oral cytotec (figuring that baby was ready and just needed one last push) rather than inserting it vaginally. There's only one person I want having any business down there, so this was a relief, but it also felt like it wasn't going to work. Swallowing a pill to try to kick-start labor? Was that any better than taking Tylenol and hoping for the same? :/ Felt like it wasn't complicated enough. This was just me being scared to hope, though, because we'd given up any and all hope that baby was going to ever be here and that I'd just be pregnant forever.

They ordered the pill, I took it, and thus started the wait. I took the pill at about 10:45 AM, so we were there for a while before anything even began to happen. SO and I alternated between the TV (it was football season) and our laptops. Got to play a little bit of WoW together, which was nice and killed the time pretty quickly. One hour after I took the pill, the really annoying BH contractions that I'd gotten so used to ignoring started to pick up in intensity. Midwife, nurse, and SO were pleased by this, as that meant it might only take one pill to get the baby out, and I was ordered to stay on my feet as much as possible to keep things going. It's a good thing the room was big, because I paced like a mofo. My lower back started to hurt a crapton, so there were also short breaks in a rocking chair (which also apparently helped rub baby's head against the cervix?), and the nurse brought in a ball for me to sit on. She showed me how to sit on it next to the hospital bed with my arms and head on the bed with pillows, and just kind of bounce/roll on it. The ball helped with my back but made the contractions hurt a lot more, so wasn't on that too much. Baby kept slipping off of the monitor because he's an attention-getter like that, so it was constantly readjusted. I texted my mom (eldest of eight kids, so she's had a lot of various labor experiences) about my symptoms, and she thought I was definitely in labor with potential back labor. Her experience with back labor was that it was the worst of the lot, though she also went through it with no pain meds whatsoever. So that kind of scared me, and I asked the nurse about it when she next came in.

Nurse: So, are they starting to hurt yet?

Me: They're definitely stronger, but the only thing that really hurts is my back. A lot. And it's not showing up on the monitor but I'm kind of being brought to tears.

Nurse: Oooh, you could be having back labor! We don't really have a way to measure that at this point though. That's hard because it can be extra painful.

Me: Awesome.

I ordered lunch (my one complaint about the hospital is that they were stingy with food. I could only order one entree such as a PB&J or one fruit etc and that really did not fill me up, as my options are limited due to being a vegetarian, and they refused to accept any orders from my starving SO unless he paid over $10 for a guest ticket per meal. wtf. I can kinda see where they're coming from but they were very rude about it+we're really poor and I was pissed.), college football games started up, and the midwife came in to check me around 2 PM.

5 1/2cm and completely effaced, AW YEAH!

I kept walking, watched my SO play WoW, and generally kind of hung out for the next hour and a half. At that point I'd decided to hop back on the ball, reasoning that yes it hurt but pain is what you want during early labor because that means things are happening, and I stopped mid-conversation because there was a noise. A feeling. It felt like a plug had been pulled somewhere up in me, and was really weird.

Me: ... Ooh.

SO: What's up? Keep bouncing! (he was a really good motivator)

Me: I feel weird. That wasn't right. Something isn't right, omigosh the baby just did something and honey, it doesn't feel right. See that big spike/noise on the monitor? I felt that.

SO: And?

Me: ... did baby just break my water?

There was a little bit of debate ("DID your water just break?" "I don't know! I'm always leaking things nowadays!" "Gross, honey."), and I suddenly started to feel a strange, vaguely sore sensation in the ladyparts, but my SO was determined that I keep walking. He helped me up and paced with me for another fifteen minutes, and something was different. *Shit got real. *The contractions had felt really just like tightening before, but now I was constantly stopping my walk and gritting my teeth/biting my lip because it hurt. My lower back felt like it was on fire and stretched around my entire abdomen. I started to cry.

I was very clear to my SO that when I start to cry, it hurt. It really, really hurt. On the pain scale, we averaged 5 ("I'd like to take some Tylenol please."), while 6 was "I'm near tears," 7 was crying, 8 was screaming and 9 was the point where he was instructed to shoot me because I was in so much pain. At this point I was rating it seven, and I was so, so tired and in so much pain and tired of walking. The nurse came in to check, saw the expression on my face, and said the midwife would be in in a few.

I decided to take a bath while I waited, my SO offered to help me in, and literally as I was opening the bathroom door I felt a whole lot of liquid heading down my legs.

Me: ACTUALLY HONEY THAT'S OKAY I CAN DO IT

SO: What--

Me: I don't know if my water broke or I just pissed myself even though I just went but I'll let you know. /close door

Socks were wet, pants and underwear were a write-off as well. It wasn't completely clear though, vaguely yellowish, but also would NOT stop and sitting on the toilet hurt so I asked my SO to call the nurse. She asked me to wipe real quick, examined it, and pronounced it pretty clear which was good and likely indicated water, and I probably would want to get in the bath now. By now the pain was crippling (all the strength seemed to leave my legs) and exhausting, and if I opened my mouth during a contraction all I'd be sure to do was moan, so I kept my mouth shut and just tried to breathe. When I sat down in the tub this set off another contraction, and I felt a rather damning sensation: really, really wanted to poop.

It's at this point that I realized I was actually going to have to give birth. Holy shit. My SO was lovely enough to let me use his new phone while I was in the tub to call my mama, because right then I was getting more frazzled by pain and not thinking clearly, so I needed some kind of distraction and comfort. My mama probably realized that shit was getting real, and kind of frantically urged me to get an epidural (which I'd decided I wanted) soon, as whenever her water was broken (she'd never had it break on its own admittedly) things started moving really quickly and I needed to get that before I went nuts from the pain or baby decided to start heading out. She actually made me hang up the phone and get a nurse to request the epidural, for which I'm very thankful.

Once I was out of the bath and dressed, the nurse and midwife came in to put in the IV. I am fucking terrified of needles, ladies. I had my SO holding my hand while I faced away from the nurse with the IV, and the midwife rubbing my back and talking me through contractions, and I started to have a huge, full-blown panic attack with lots and lots of tears. I only remember a lot of panic and a general feeling of OHGODNO, and kept begging my SO to take me home, we'll just forget about this whole labor thing it's cool. The nurse finally managed to get one IV in, and said the worst thing to say to someone terrified of needles after you've stabbed them:

Nurse: Well that one blew.

THAT'S MY VEIN, LADY. WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT. NOW I KNOW MY BLOOD IS EVERYWHERE.

And that meant she had to do it again. My SO and midwife were ordering me to slow my breathing down, and almost shouting at me to do it, the nurse was getting irritated and I just kind of froze. Looking back, I'm pretty sure I just gave up on life entirely for a good two minutes while she put the second IV in, this time successfully. They cleaned up all the blood, snot, and tears and helped me get in bed. Nurse hooked me up to the bag of fluids and they left.

Contractions really, really hurt now and left me so exhausted. My SO tried to help, but he'd try to rub my shoulders/neck and that just triggered my gag reflex, so the one time I snapped at him was to bite out "PLEASE-DON'T-TOUCH-THERE," while dry-heaving into the provided bucket. After that contraction I apologized and explained. The nurse came in and gave me some blue painkiller in the IV, to take the edge off of the contractions. It would only last for an hour, but then they could give me an epidural yay. I dozed between contractions, but they'd always wake me up every couple minutes and then I would wail. I didn't think my voice could reach that level of volume. It didn't help that half the time I was wailing into a bucket and that amplified it, but still. I think I scared my SO a lot with it, and vaguely figured it out, so I told him that now was the time to call in his BFF for moral support and comfort.

The contractions started to get more painful and my voice reaching higher levels when the anesthesiologist, midwife and nurse came in. Guess that hour of taking the edge off was up. The epidural was worse than the IV because again, I am fucking terrified of needles, and also at this time was in an incredible amount of pain every other minute. There was a similar scene with sobbing and a panic attack, and according to my SO I came within an inch of not getting the epidural because I was being difficult, but eventually I again just froze and felt like I gave up. It didn't even really hurt (the IV was worse), and he didn't have to do it more than once.

Protip: don't be scared of the needles. They are going to help you and only take away the pain! I am not a dignified lady around them; don't be like me when it comes to needles.

Then I was confined to the bed, laid down, and pretty much just mentally passed out. Eventually the pain started to noticeably ease up. After a little bit I could move my legs but couldn't feel a thing in the abdominal area, and it was amazing.

The next couple hours were spent dozing, chatting with BFF when she showed up, and being checked on by the nurse. I am so glad I got an epidural. The last several months of pregnancy had been so stressful on my body and I was used to everything always aching, even with a really 'easy' pregnancy it sucked, and to have all of that go away was simply magical. I was high on the sheer joy of not hurting.

My parents and grandma showed up, cheering me on, and then left for the waiting room. Another nurse showed up, as they were changing the shifts, and began pressuring me during her checks to get the catheter in. I've never had a catheter. I only vaguely knew what it was, and it didn't sound pleasant. I managed to keep begging her to stay it just a little longer, but eventually the time came when the BFF had to cover her eyes and the nurse gave it a shot. This was just after 9 PM.

I will give this nurse props. She tried her damnedest to get that catheter in there. I didn't feel any pain, just a vague sensation of someone poking around the ladyparts, and eventually she stuck a couple fingers in to see what was up and paused.

Nurse: OH. That explains it. The head is RIGHT THERE. Well, looks like you're gonna have a baby! I'll go and grab the midwife, be right back.

Me: Wat.

The BFF gave me lots of encouragement and left the room. (I later found out that she really just stood outside the room for a few minutes before we called her back in to say hallo to the new baby, as my hospital has the only waiting room several floors down. wtf) The midwife brought her toolkit and propped up my legs, shining what seemed to be a floodlight on my nether regions. Nurse took her position near the midwife, and my SO stood by me and held my hand.

It was when the light turned on that it hit me like a train: this was happening. I was going to push a baby out. It might mess me up for life down there, it would change my life forever, I wouldn't be pregnant, etc. It got to the point where there were so many thoughts flooding my head that I somehow found the fortitude to shove them aside and examine them later. Just concentrated on not thinking and the task at hand.

Pushing? Not that intimidating. Midwife instructed that whenever I felt a particularly strong urge to poop, "bear down" until it stopped, then rest. I was on my back, legs pulled up (I held one, SO held one). We actually kept a nice chatter going through the process, including asking about mirrors (this was not something I could handle in any way, thank you for asking though), and then the little boy started to appear. He had hair, which is really all my dreams come true.

We started pushing at 9:15 PM. He was born exactly 30 minutes later.

My husband watched his boy come shooting out of me, and he describes it as "beautiful and awesome," with this awestruck tone in his voice. I love him.

Next thing I know there's this wailing baby being dried off somewhere nearby. I kept my eyes closed and firmly far away from anywhere near the southern end, because I knew there was blood and could not handle it. Didn't even feel the placenta being delivered a few minutes later, though I did request that she toss it immediately and didn't even want to see it.

Then my baby boy was placed on my bare chest, and everything came together. He was snuffling and whimpering and snuggling, and his first act of life was to poop tar all over me. And that's okay, because after the last ten months, I really didn't care about some poop, no matter how sticky and how much difficulty the nurse had in wiping it off. This was my boy, our baby. Totally worth it.

POSTPARTUM JUNK:

After everyone filed in and said their hellos to the new man as he snuggled on me, the nurse started weighing/scaling/etc. He had no jaundice, perfect color, and weighed 7 1/2 lb and was 13 inches long. I kind of just relaxed on the bed. Friends left, nurse swaddled the new man up and plopped him in daddy's arms, and hustled me out of the bed to the bathroom to try to pee. I did not successfully pee, but did notice some burny sensations when I tried (I didn't tear or anything, just stress of normal birth), so I may have lied to get her off my back. >_> I then hopped in the tub while the nurse cleaned up all the blood on the floor, the bathroom, the bed, the path from the bed to the bathroom, etc. Did not look down and see all of this, but my SO later informed me that it was EVERYWHERE. Also that nobody cleaned up the amniotic fluid by the bathroom and he had to keep steering people away from the massive puddle.

Nurse helped me get dressed, showed me the awesome mesh underwear and how to layer granny pads on top of one another to catch most bleeding, helped me to bed with instructions to begin breastfeeding, and left.

I didn't know they just left you there with your new baby, and it was terrifying and neither of us slept much at all. Breastfeeding went really well, and I continued to do it successfully for another three months.

I was blessed to have a really positive experience, and if we end up having to induce + I have time to get the epidural (I loved it), I'm not scared and am confident that everything will be just fine. Due November 7, 2013 with our second boy, so here's hoping we don't forget the carseat next time, lol. ;)