ying... to the point where talking was all but impossible during contractions. I was still thinking "I can totally handle this. Many many many women have done this before and they have not died (although a few have). It will all be over very very soon." And other such positive (or mostly positive) thoughts... just like I had for the past 48 hours. Life was good, albeit rather painful.

Fast forward to 7pm, I broke down in tears, (lots and lots of tears) and decided I could not take another minute of this horrible ordeal, so I phoned my mom and asked her what I should do. She told me I should definitely just go to the hospital regardless of my insane fear that they would send me home again (After being sent home twice one is not particularly inspired to go again... even if the first time was warranted). I was more than happy to comply, (even if I was a tad frightened they would send me back home) so I washed the dishes, threw a few last minute items in the pre-packed bag and we took off. We arrived at the hospital where someone kindly took compassion on my rather ragged, worn thin state and decided to admit me immediately, I was thrilled.

December 27th-

1am - 3.5 - 4 cm - 80%.... After an unsuccessful attempt to break my water the kind people decided to give me a sleeping pill and pain meds so I could sleep and be all slept up and awake for delivery the next day. I slept wonderfully, but one has a hard time catching up on 2-3 missed nights of sleep in 6-7 hours, it just doesn't happen.

6am(ish)... maybe 7am... 5cm - 80%... I am awake, not much has happened during the night... blah blah blah... at some point they broke my water, I'm not sure if I even remember that. (Drugs will do that to you)

From here my time line breaks down... you'll have to ask someone else if you want to know. Basically the situation was that my contractions were "irregular" (I would have a group that were 3-5 minutes apart and then nothing for 10-20 minutes and then a group again, and so on) and I wasn't dilating very fast... if at all. I had 1 or 2 shots in the arm for pain, but the stuff pretty much just put me to sleep, which has it's perks but being groggy when you're trying to have a kid is not very cool. The day wore on... I was still uncomfortable and increasingly ready for everything to be over. (You can only say "One contraction closer to holding my baby," or "In a few hours this will all be over," or "Hang in there, we're almost there!" for so many days before you feel that you have A) lost it altogether or B) lost it altogether) What I'm trying to say is after not getting much sleep for 3 days and being in some degree of pain for a good portion of that time, one is not emotionally stable enough to deal with pain or anything else for that matter. (Unless of course you're superman/woman and you're cool like that, I'm not) Anyway back to the story.

At some point during the afternoon I decided the only way this child was coming into this world was if I had an epidural...many of you know how much I hate needles and how much I did NOT want to have one... but after 3 days of not getting much of anywhere while being in pain and not sleeping, it didn't matter anymore, besides I can totally handle a big needle in my back if it means being a happier more emotionally stable person. At this point the contractions while still bearable(ish) where to the point that I almost could not handle them. Scratch that, I couldn't handle them. At which point my impeccable breathing turned into short tiny gasps, causing the babies heart rate to dip. Of course my panicked state was not helped when they slapped an oxygen mask on my face and an internal monitor on the baby. I eventually calmed down again, between contractions, anyway... the epidural was nowhere in sight, the only anesthesiologist was in with an emergency c-section and had to finish there before he came and stuck a hole in my back.

2 hours (and 3.2 gallons of tears, a whole ton of trying to breathe deeply and a few wonderfully awesome hand holding people) later.... the dude with the epidural showed up. Words cannot not express my relief, not remotely. They had everyone but one person leave the room (Ben, my mom, and Thea were all there) when my mom and Thea left I was a sobbing heap, mentally and emotionally drained, and trying my best not to hyperventilate again... upon their return 20 minutes later I was smiling,and talking as if I was still on day one of labor. It was nice, it was very nice... even the part where I couldn't decide if my toes were cold or not. It was decided to start a pitocin drip along with the epidural to hopefully regularize my contractions and speed things up. Even on pitocin my contractions continued to be irregular, the nice part was I couldn't feel them so it didn't really matter anyway.

7pm - 10 cm - 100%... It was time to push, but since I was numb and couldn't tell the difference they went ahead and switched shifts and promised to be back after shift change. (My mom thought it would be a long time)

7:20pm - Pushing. This was a little frustrating because they were saying how to push and all that, but when you're totally numb you can't really decide which muscles you are or are not employing... and it makes things a tad difficult. The nice(ish) part was the epidural had left a small spot untouched on my hip so I could feel the contractions ever so slightly and thus knew when to push (that, and mom was watching the monitor for me to confirm my suspicions). The not so nice part was the lovely nurse took it upon herself to basically ignore me unless it was to say "Push, push, push" or tell me how I wasn't pushing in the right spot. Whatever. Try being numb and doing the same thing. (They were trying to get the epidural guy back to turn off the juice so I could feel something, because the new policy says they can't do it themselves, or something... he showed up 30 minutes (or better) after the baby was born) Anyway, long story short, I pushed for an hour and there he was...thankfully after all that "hard work" or whatever you want to call it, he's been a super 'easy' baby *knock on wood* he wakes up once (MAYBE twice) at night and doesn't scream unless we accidentally drop things on him, or change his diaper... he cries a little more often than that, but not much. From this perspective I'm all for having a hard labor if it means the kids are nicer... Anyway... I shall be shushed now. The end.