I’ll tell my labor story and try not to get too wordy on ya like I normally do.

September 2nd, 2:30am I wake up for no reason, I’m laying there feeling fine, wondering why I’m awake when *gush* “OH!” hurray I think I know that familiar feeling. I go to the bathroom, grab a pad and turn the lights on (which I normally wouldn’t do) my husband gets up because he knows something must be up. “This is it I think” we get ready, he’s a little too calm, he makes coffee, I get annoyed. “Pack up the car!”

All the necessary phone calls are made, daughter is sent to best friends house, everything seems to go smoothly despite it being the middle of the night. We go to the hospital where there’s a great nurse helping us out and she confirms that it’s amniotic fluid so we think hurray! We assume in just a few short hours it will be baby-time and all will be well. That’s how it went with our first daughter, 7hrs after water broke there was a precious baby in our arms.

Not so much this time. I arrived dilated 3cm and 90% effaced which doesn’t sound too bad, they know I’m one of those natural freaks so they don’t immediately start pushing the Pitocin - this time (hurray). Everything goes ok, I’m walking laps around the maternity ward to dilate, feeling basically fine, not in much of any kind of real pain. The nurse shift switches over after several hours and a woman my husband calls, “Malibu Barbie Nurse” is now in charge. Ew. Her and her flat stomach and giant fake boobs are the last thing I want to see. She starts telling me I need to do nipple stimulation and start speeding things up, I’m just not laboring fast enough for her for some reason - even tho at this point I was 6cm dilated. She lets me continue my walking but does need to monitor me every so often (she says every twenty minutes but she’s not that attentive) so I walk & walk and walk some more. I suspect I’m not in enough pain for her liking so I play it up as I walk by her desk one time, “Oh, ow, oh I think things are getting more intense.” she smiles, “Good!” my husband asks when we’re out of ear shot, “Was that just for her benefit.” -Yup.

So then they start talking Pitocin she tells me her own labor story (wait, she has a kid?) they gave her Pitocin it was no big deal, blah blah blah. Fine. She’s happy that I’m open to it - tho I’m really not, the deal is if I keep dilating on my own (which I was with the walking) then I can keep putting it off. “If she doesn’t dilate more by 1pm… start the Pitocin” they break my other bag of waters and finally as if my baby boy was waiting for the next nurse to come on and birth him, I’m 8cm dilated and things really are getting intense and painful. Malibu Barbie nurse is out, Kind Older Woman nurse is on, great choice little man! She shows me about the birthing ball, it’s the miracle thing I needed, I LOVE the birthing ball. When I hit 9cm I was told to get in the bed which I wasn’t crazy about but things are so foggy at that point, I probably said something like, “NO me love birthing ball.” but they got me up there anyway to check everything.

I remember them telling me NOT to push. They checked me, I start writhing and groaning and my husband starts getting pissed that the doctor isn’t there yet. I tell them I HAVE to push!!! My husband says “No!” but the doc is just getting his scrubs on and jumping on to the stool and says “OK” so I do it and the next words I hear I can’t believe - “One more good push like that and he’s out.” to this I say, “Yeah RIGHT!” and I remember so clearly my husband saying, “No it’s true, I can see his head!” so I gave it another big heave and everyone cheered, one last push for good luck and I was done. I have to give the doc credit, he wasn’t my usual doctor (which is fine, she sucks in my eyes anyway, can’t come in on her day off…) this guy did an amazing job sewing me up (I tore) he took his time and today everything down there feels oddly fine. I had very little bleeding and in general was walking the same day with no trouble, etc. etc.

I left out parts to try and be concise, there was the whole issue of rotating the sunny side up baby (which he did on his own, little champ), the cord all tangled up around him, loosely thank goodness, and the IV I had to get for the strep B - how many stabs does it take to give a woman an IV? Seven apparently.

I feel so grateful, when all is said and done, that my very healthy little man is outside now. One pediatrician even said she can tell he’s going to have his daddy’s beautiful blue eyes, he looks like a mini version of my husband and since my daugher is my mini me it only seems fair.