As it happened...

I drafted this on the afternoon of Thursday, February 7, following my weekly appointment:

Dilated 3 cm.
70% effaced.

This is real, folks. VERY real.

I'll try to whine a lot less about the BH contractions I've been experiencing now that I know they're actually getting their job done. :) Good job, tough uterus muscles... You're smashing my cervix nicely and widening me out--good, good, good.

Little did I know that just a few hours later, my "tough uterus muscles" were going to really put on a show and speed things up from a week or two out to just an hour or two. My doctor said he was nearly certain I wouldn't make it to 40 weeks; it was fun to call him that night (he happened to be the on-call doctor) and let him know that my water had broken and by golly, this girl was on her way.

So my dears, do you want the whole scoop? If not, skip the next few paragraphs. 

My water randomly broke around 10:45 that night as Blake and I were chatting in our room. I rushed to the toilet, very aware that I had not wet my pants. So I don't know about you guys, but I assumed that when your water breaks, it's a big Splash Mountain gush that soaks your pants and everything else. (*how embarrassing!* Pishposh. If you are most obviously 8 or 9 months pregnant and you're rushing out of Walmart looking like you wet your pants, people aren't going to be embarrassed for you--they'll be excited.) Not always the case, it turns out. I camped out in the bathroom for a while as Blake sat on the edge of the tub with the laptop googling "Is my water really broken?" After calling the hospital and then my doctor, we were told to go to the hospital and if contractions didn't start on their own, they'd put me on petocin. (Like I said, my water broke without warning. It's often the case that you've been contracting for quite a while before you get to that point.) That turned out to be unnecessary, as contractions came in full force four or five minutes apart after my water had broken. (For those of you who don't know, that pace is your body's code for Go to the hospital. Pronto. This baby's a comin'!)


Bags packed? Psh- Nope. Who prepares in advance for these sort of things? Honestly. So passe...
Car seat installed? Nope. (But we owned one! That's as good as prepared.)
Any idea what the tar we were doing? Basically nope. But excited and anxious and drowning in adrenalin nonetheless.

So we threw a few things together in between contractions, left for the hospital, paused a few times in the hospital parking lot for me to make it through a contraction, and got admitted in a spiffy jiff. A nurse checked my progress and found I was dilated to nearly 6 cm and 100% effaced. She could tell it was going to be a speedy delivery (from me, incidentally, not Mr. McFeely...) but even she underestimated how quickly things were going to move.


As it became more clear that Little Girl was ready for her debut and wouldn't be bothered to wait for anyone or anything, nurses started calling the doctor and anesthesiologist, hoping they'd make it in time to deliver. I did receive an epidural, but my labor was moving so quickly that the epidural was trying in vain to play catch up. Kind of like in a relay race where the person receiving the baton starts out too fast for the already tired runner to make the hand-off. So I ran the marathon on my own before the epidural caught up to pass the baton of relief. Actually, that's not true--Blake was with me EVERY. STEP. OF THE WAY. and I've never been so grateful for his death-grip or his support in my life. With the exception of this last week; there has been something about this whole miraculous experience and transition that has made us cling to each other more tightly than we ever have before. It is beautiful.

So long story short, less than three short hours (unheard of!) after my water broke, we were holding a beautiful baby girl--6 pounds, 8 ounces, 19 1/2 inches, and practically perfect in every way. Welcome home, Eliza Jane. We love you so, so much.