They didn't stop. And they hurt more than before. So sometime around 6:30, I think, I texted my friend Aggie. We were planning to run to Nashville that day. She was also my ride to the hospital if Ben came sooner than we hoped. I said something like "are you up yet? I don't think Nashville's a good idea." By then the contrations were consistently 10 minutes apart.
Luke got up at 7ish. I got online to look for Stephen to tell him what might be going on. Poor Luke could tell I was not feeling well. He was stressed out. Then, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. We were at the table with the laptop. I got up to do something at the sink. Luke managed to turn my computer screen sideways!!!!! I was talking to Stephen with IM! The mouse wasn't even working right! Then my sister-in-law called me and started talking about something. Normally, this is fine, but my computer screen was sideways and I was having contractions and trying to talk to my husband on the other side of the planet! Then I had another contraction!! Luke was stressed out and started crying. And my sister-in-law was talking about something (sorry, Jeanne, but I couldn't think straight at the moment). Finally, I got off the phone with her, maybe not in the most polite way, but something had to give. Stephen managed to tell me how to fix my computer screen. I calmed Luke down again, and Aggie was on her way.
My neighbor was the one on call to watch Luke while I went to the hospital. I called her. She came right over. Aggie went to take her dog to another friend's house. If I remember right, or understood at the time, she's the one who'd just had her wisdom teeth removed. I felt so bad! The contractions were 6 minutes apart. Not panicking, but ready to get to the hospital. I've heard that if you wait too long, you can't get an epidural. I was not going to miss the epidural!!
On the way to the hospital, Aggie was great! She helped me through the contractions. I didn't prepare at all to "breathe through them" or whatever you're supposed to do. I was having an epidural.
When we got to the gate to get on post, I think the guard was annoyed with us for seeming in such a hurry. I conveniently started having a contraction when we pulled up to show our IDs.
"She's in labor," said Aggie.
"What?" said the slightly annoyed gate guard.
"She's in labor." (do you really have to say that twice?)
"Oh! Get out of the way! Move, move!" The guard started yelling to the car in front of us.
We caused a raucous at the gate!!
Aggie dropped me off at the front door. I sat on the bench, in pajamas basically, and proceeded to have a contraction. I heard, then saw out of the corner of my eye, Aggie running up with my bag, laptop, and her goody-bag she'd brought for us. She's pregnant, too, by the way. Poor Aggie!
"Breathe, breathe. It's almost over." She said. "Breathe, I just ran into a car, breathe!"
"What?! That's probably going to be funny in a minute," I thought.
When we got in, she pulled out the bag of white-chocolate-covered pretzels. Flipz? They were the most delicious thing I'd ever had in my entire life at that moment. When I got up around 5, I'd tried to eat 1/2 of a bowl of cereal, but it just made me nauseous. The nurse kept coming in and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be eating so I sort of tried to hide them. I don't think I was very successful, but then I thought, "just try to tell this pregnant woman in labor not to eat white-chocolate-covered pretzels and see what happens." (I'd probably drop to the floor in agony if I tried anything, so nevermind).
They moved me right into a labor room. I got my laptop set up right away. Stephen was waiting to video chat. That was the most wonderful thing. He was there the whole time with me. They put the laptop on that food tray table and just rolled him from one side of the bed to the other when people had to do stuff.
It took a while for the anesthesiologist to come with the epidural. They said there was another woman in another room who was in more pain than I was. I found that hard to believe!
I shouldn't have watched an epidural being administered online a few weeks before because I couldn't get that image of the 2-foot needle sticking out of a woman's back out of my mind. That didn't stop me, though. Contractions are awful!
Stephen was with me the whole time. The video connection was fantastic! He was so wonderful and it was so calming to have him with me. I wished I could've held his hand, but I couldn't. So, video chat was the next best thing. We talked between contractions and then during contractions when I couldn't feel them anymore because of the beautiful epidural.
The midwife said the baby might be born around 5 or 6pm. A few minutes later she came in and said, "Oh, well you're ready. Let's start pushing." What? (anyone who was following of facebook, that's what happened.)
Two and a half pushes later, Ben was born! My beautiful, tiny baby boy was here. He was 2lbs, 2oz and 2 inches smaller than his big brother.
"Hi, Daddy!"
Mommy, Daddy, and Ben. I loooove technology!!!
