It started earlier in the day at my routine doctor appointment, I was 39 weeks and 1 day. Because of the gestational diabetes, they were talking about inducing a little bit early and because of insurance changes and needing to change hospitals July 1st they scheduled me to be induced on Friday evening. Each doctor I saw thought I might go fast, meaning around 3-4 hours, so they primarily work out of Memorial so recommended I stay with Memorial again if I am able to. The doctor stripped my membranes to see if we could get something going on my own before the scheduled induction. I went home and decided I should probably finish packing my bag for the hospital because I was going to be going in the next 72 hours regardless. Contractions started, but they were not super intense so I was trying to tidy up the house a little bit in case we were going to head to the hospital that night but thinking that was not likely to happen since I hadn't gone on my own in the past. Around dinner time I decided to start timing the contractions and they continued but weren't at the "lasting 1 minute, 5 minutes apart" threshold that warranted going to the hospital. Tim went to small group and I had a normal evening with the addition of contractions. When Tim got home from small group we went for a walk. The contractions were consistent and meeting the above threshold but they weren't very intense so I wasn't sure if I should go in or not. Tim had his parents come get the kids and decided we were going to go in. We got to the hospital about 10:30pm, I believe, and they hooked me up and then checked me. I was similar to what I had been at the doctor's office even though I had been having contractions throughout the evening so they said I could go home or I could walk for an hour or two and see if things progressed. So we decided to walk for an hour and check again. We got back to the triage room at 12:15 to get hooked back up and checked again. By this time, I had a nice pattern of contractions and they were about 3 minutes apart. But the most important part of contractions is progressing the cervix - which these were not doing. I was still just a 3, which was pretty much where I was pre- walking. So they sent me home - the nurse said to come back if anything seems different -- the contractions become more intense or just seem different or, of course, if my water broke. We went home, getting there probably around 1:30am, and I *tried* to get some rest. Laying down, the contractions continued and maybe got a little more intense, but had spread to about 7-8 minutes apart. (As I was laying there, I thought about my friends who go naturally and wondered how in the world they do this for so many hours.) So Tim said we should go back I said no because they are too far apart. So probably another half hour passed and I got up to go to the bathroom and being upright made the contractions way more intense and I realized they were about 3 minutes apart since standing. So I stopped arguing with Tim about going back in and he loaded the car back up. He texted his mom at 3:16a that we were leaving our house. As we were pulling out of the driveway I yelled for his hand as I was having a contraction but later he tried to give me his hand while I was having a contraction and I yelled at him to not touch me -- poor thing got yelled at quite a bit on the ride in. As we were driving, my water broke. At that point Tim knew she was coming soon, I was a little more skeptical. I just knew it hurt, but knew I was staying because my water broke. (Tim had thought ahead and put a towel on the seat before we left :)) Then it got really real when I realized I felt like I needed to push. At first I thought it was just needing to go to the bathroom because I couldn't possibly be a 10 already, but then the pain got more intense along with the need to push. Luckily there isn't much traffic that time of morning. We made it to the laboring mom parking (a wonderful idea!) and headed in. At first I told Tim not to go in ahead of me to get someone and then changed my mind to have him start to get me checked in. He asked me if I wanted a wheelchair or to walk - I said walk then wheelchair then "I don't know what I want." I did a lot of changing my mind! Since I had been in earlier I think that might have helped me be able to just head back to triage... my constant grunt yells and saying (probably yelling) I felt like I need to push might have also helped them rush me back to the triage room. I took off my shorts and climbed on the bed for the resident doctor to check me. I think I was still in denial because before he checked me the first thing I said was "I want an epidural if I still can" and the nurse said lets just see where you are (or something like that) and I said "I can't have one can I?" I'm still yelling I feel like I need to push, the nurse said that I could go ahead and push. She asked if my water broke and I yelled Yes at her and she said "okay, its okay" and so then I had to yell "Sorry" at her. I knew it wasn't coming out how I wanted it to, but I only was able to yell responses :-P The doctor said I was a 9 - in my head I knew I couldn't push until a 10 so I yelled "What do you want me to do? I feel like I need to push! What do you want me to do?!?" So she said - go ahead and push. I had heard of the "ring of fire" and it terrified me so I didn't want to push until I knew it was really time and I thought it wasn't time since I was a 9. But she said she was coming and I could push so I pushed a little and out she came, less than 5 minutes after arriving at the hospital. Born at 3:44am (and it typically takes 25-30 min to get to the hospital from our house.) The doc then asked if I still wanted that epidural and I let him know I thought I was okay :-) I think we had 3 or 4 nurses and 2 doctors in the triage room for her quick delivery. They pulled up my shirt and placed her on me and I just laid there stunned that it was already over. I hadn't slept since 6:45 the previous morning so between the excitement and disbelief that I actually just delivered her naturally I just laid there. After delivering the placenta, they wheeled my bed from triage over to the birthing suite to finish the delivery paperwork/post delivery process. Once I was in the birthing suite, my actual doctor walked in. He said "Sorry I missed all the action" My response: "Sorry I didn't wait for you" :) Around 6:20 we got moved to our post-partum room -- You could order breakfast at 6:30 and I was starving so I decided to eat before we went to sleep... which of course took longer than anticipated for the food to be delivered, but worked out because we got to meet with the pediatrician before we went to sleep also. He walked in and said I hear we almost made the newspapers - we almost had a baby in the car. As a sidenote, we're really happy with our decision to go with Dr Horvath - he is such a sweet pediatrician! So around 8:30, we sent Caroline off to the nursery so we could get a little sleep after being up for 24 hours +. Both of us could only sleep for about 2 hours though so we started our day. Now baby girl has a name and we're ready to start this new life as a family of 6 -- even before her due date and on her own! I said I would like to go naturally sometime, but could only do it if it was too fast to have an epidural... and that's exactly what happened. Kudos to my friends out there who choose to go naturally with long labors!
