I'd been having contractions for weeks, but they weren't productive. I had my regular weekly appointment on Wednesday, January 12th, one day overdue, and I was dilated about 2 cm. Dr. Bell didn't think Henry would be born any time soon and thought it was best to induce me Monday the 17th at 7:30 am. Disappointed, I went home and finished out the week pacing the house. On Friday night I was having some contractions, but not very painful ones. I took a couple Tylenol and went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night with more contractions and took a couple more Tylenol and went back to bed. Saturday morning didn't bring many contractions at all. The few I had were spaced fairly far apart and were not very intense. As the day progressed the contractions got a little stronger and a little closer together; although they still weren't very painful. I took my usual afternoon nap only to have the contractions completely stop. I had a few during dinner and throughout the early evening. Then...at about 8:00 the contractions really picked up, both in frequency and intensity. By 9:00 my contractions were 10 minutes apart and lasting about a minute and a half. I called the nurses station to see when they wanted us to head in. She said any time, but if I wasn't far enough along they'd just send me home. I decided to stay put and continue watching Shrek and let Landon continue watching the Miss America pageant. I did call our neighbor, Carolyn, to give her a heads up that we might be heading to the hospital but didn't know when. By 10:00 my contractions were lasting about 2 minutes and were only about 1 minute apart. I'm not quite sure how I went from 10 minutes apart to 1 minute apart so quickly, but I did. Landon called Carolyn again and she was at the house within a few minutes. We headed to the hospital in a mad race against another girl in labor (the first one admitted got the birthing suite, so we had to hurry). We got to the hospital at about 11:20, losing the race, and were sent to the ER waiting room while they took care of Allison, the other mother. I spent about 10 minutes in the waiting room with Allison's mom having contractions that were intense and frequent enough to produce a baby. Finally, Allison's mom went and got an ER nurse and told them they needed to do something with me now, BEFORE I had a baby in the waiting room. At about 11:30 I was in the coveted birthing suite, checked and dilated to about 7 cm. I was going to attempt to deliver without drugs, but I caved as soon as they checked me in and started begging for an epidural. They had to draw blood, get an IV going, and do a few things first, which took FOREVER. In the meantime Dr. Bell showed up (11:45 ish), and checked me. And this is when he broke the news, I was ready to push and there wasn't any time for an epidural (at this point they still hadn't drawn blood or managed to get an IV hooked up). Dr. Bell left for a minute to get changed into scrubs while the nurses did their thing. Dr. Bell was back in at about 12:00 and told me to go ahead and push if I felt the urge. Um, no thanks. First, I haven't had an epidural, and second, you aren't completely scrubbed in yet! Dr. Bell was still putting on his baby catching outfit as he was telling me to push. So, at a few minutes after 12 I started pushing. I pushed through two contractions and Dr. Bell said he'd be out in one more contraction. Well, he lied, it took two more contractions. I pushed for about 7 minutes and we had a baby, WITHOUT an epidural. Of course my little man was perfect. We spent the night in the hospital and were discharged Monday morning with this little bundle of joy:
