Labor... appropriately named...

So that's why they call it labor! It is laborious.

Let me 'splain... No, there is too much. Let me sum up. [/Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride]

I woke up in the middle of the night, or rather, very early in the morning Monday, May 4, at 2 a.m. and got up to go to the bathroom, per my usual nightly ventures. Well, to say the least, I barely made it this time. This was NOT the usual nightly venture; I knew pretty quickly it was much, much different. Within minutes, I started having pretty persistent cramps. I waited a short while and called the doctor when they didn't subside. (Trust me, I wanted to call right away, but the book told me not to, that I should try to wait to determine if it was false labor or true.) My OB suggested I take some Tylenol and try to time the cramps (aka CONTRACTIONS! holy shit!). She said if it was true labor, the Tylenol wouldn't relieve the pain. Bingo! So they were coming pretty fast and furious from the get-go—about five minutes apart. I called her back; she told to me to go ahead and go to the hospital and she would see me there!

So what did I do with my "waiting" time, pending the doctor's decision that a trip to the hospital was in order? Well, fortunately we had packed our hospital suitcase and put it by the door the day before so I didn't have all that much to do. Talk about timing, lol! So between the cramps and the thousand bathroom trips, I walked around the house since I had read that it helps the pain. Seriously?! Who decided that horseshit? Anyway, I busied myself with putting the last of things for the baby into a diaper bag (read: threw some clothes in his bag without really looking at what I chose...so much for an adorable "Going Home Outfit" pfft!) I grabbed the bathroom bag and my pillow and the phone chargers and a few other items we'd need, and got ready for what I knew would be the inevitable word from the pro. So when I talked to the doc for the second time at 4:30 and got the go-ahead, I quietly got dressed, turned the lights on low, and as gently as I could, woke Adam from his sound sleep. His reaction: "What? Are you serious?" Lol! Well, yeah! I'm not fucking with your head at 4:45 a.m. just for shiggles! Then...I guess it was kind of unexpected being over three weeks before our due date, come to think of it...

He was up and bouncing around our room in seconds trying to figure out what to do first. I'm not sure he'd ever been so shocked in his life. Somehow, I remained calm and told him to take a minute to wake up, gather himself, brush his teeth and whatnot. The last thing we needed was him driving us to the hospital completely dazed, and with morning breath on top of it. Ok, I confess I was thinking of myself... if he was gonna be in my face "comforting" me, I didn't want any a.m. halitosis making it worse, lol!

We arrived at the Emergency entrance of the hospital by 5:30 and were admitted directly to a labor and delivery room. Here's where I sum up. Perhaps a timeline will suffice?

5:45 a.m. ~ Nurse on duty comes in, does an exam, can't find my cervix, thinks I'm fully dilated. oh fuck! you've got to be kidding!
5:46 a.m. ~ Dr. on call comes in, does an exam, can't find my cervix, thinks I'm fully dilated. double fuck! are you serious?! is my reaction. is it even POSSIBLE to dilate that fast? it's been less than four hours since my water broke! this "exam," by the way, is more painful than labor, y'all, honesttoshit. I'm not exaggerating.
5:50 a.m. ~ Dr. announces there might not be time for an epidural. WHAT?! oh shit, oh shit, oh shit... and so on. All I could do was mumble to myself. And I have never seen such fear on Adam's face. I think he was trying to mentally prepare for how he was going to help me get through labor without medication. I would've been terrified too.
5:51 a.m. ~ Epidural can't happen until they have pushed a full bag of fluids through me, so they put a pump on the bag to rush it as much as they can. *fingers crossed that there's time*

The next hour or so was a crazy, mind-numbing blur of activity. I was only partly present for most of it. My contractions at this point were only a minute or so apart. There were a ton of nurses and techs in the room getting everything ready. The anesthesiologist was there setting up. A random nurse who'd come into the room to get something was trapped in by all the equipment; and thankfully so as she ended up being my salvation in the whole mess of the moment. The guy had a helluva time with the epidural seeing as in my condition by that point, I could NOT hold still for him to stick the splint in. Aforementioned nurse shoved a pillow in between us, wrapped her arms around me as tightly as she could, and helped me to breathe. I shook; she held me still for the needle. If not for her, I know that damned thing never would've made it into my spine.

6:45 a.m. ~ They kept asking me if I had any urge to push. I said I had no idea what that meant. They said, oh, you'll know it when you feel it... WHAT in the HELL?! I thought I was supposed to be getting numb, not "feeling" things. I was so tired, and now even more confused. Well, thanks for that wealth of knowledge, assholes!
7 a.m. ~ All was right with the world again; the epidural was successful, and I was on my way to numb.
7:15-ish a.m. ~ The next Dr. on duty, who would end up being my delivery Dr., Rebecca Banks, came in for another one of those awful "exams." *shudder* I braced myself. Well, guess what? She found it! My cervix! Imagine that...it was still there the whole time! I don't know where the hell the other two went looking for it, but they were not in the right place apparently. *eye roll* I was about three to four centimeters dilated and 100% effaced. Once the epidural had me numbed to the point that I could no longer feel the contractions, which had slowed as a result, by the way, I was put on Pitocin to help speed them back up again. Fine with me! Let's get this shit over with already!

The rest of the timeline is a little bit skewed on account of the exhaustion of the previous hours of pain and then the utter relief of the drugs kicking in and doing their jobs. But basically there were phone calls amongst family members going on, my brother had shown up at the hospital, gone home, and come back. My dad had booked a flight to Atlanta and would arrive around 2. My mom was on her way from Florida and made it by noon, I think. Adam's mom was in the waiting room maybe? I don't really remember. Everyone was telling me to rest. Sure, stop coming in my room every two seconds, and I'll do that...

12:45 p.m. ~ We start pushing. They were right; I knew it when I felt it. And it felt like an eternity. With every round, the nurse and Dr. kept saying, One or two more and he should be here! But there were a lot more than "one or two more." Adam stood vigilantly by my side holding one leg while I pushed and my hand while I rested. His voice and the doctor's were the only two I listened to. I could hear everyone else cheering me on and everything, but it was all so jumbled and frustrating. The nurse's counting was so off of what I had going on that I started counting to myself instead. My foot kept slipping on her stupid glove. I chose her to hate during my delivery. Of course, I couldn't have done it without her, lol, but I needed someone to be pissed at to get the job done. Dr. Banks, on the other hand, was amazing. When I could focus on nothing else, she would catch my eye and straightforwardly give me instruction, to which, miraculously, I followed to the T, despite having no patience or strength left to call my own. And Adam just knew me so well in those moments. He knew just what to do, just how to act, just what I was thinking about everything going on.

2:17 p.m. ~ Stormy's arrival. He's beautiful. Just perfect. They wiped his face and layed him on my stomach. Tears and smiles. And as happy as I was to see him and touch him, I was happy as well when they took him over to the table to clean him up and get his stats. I needed a few minutes to let it all soak in. It was over, and he was here. And he was safe and healthy, and we were all together as a family, and that's all that mattered.

And so, I figured today, Stormy's Due Date, was as good a day as any to finally publish his delivery story. Welcome to the world, beautiful boy!