February 3rd

I can barely remember what I had for dinner last night, but February 3rd and the events of the day will forever be burned into my memory. I never knew how much detail I could retain until it involved our daughter.

It was Tuesday, February 1st and Blizzard 2011 was rearing it's ugly head. I was stuck in my house with my in-laws and husband watching a ridiculous amount of TV and eating food we were not hungry for but we we're bored and there was nothing else to do. My mom was trapped in a hotel room five minutes from our house cooking meals for after our babies arrival. I was about to go finish packing for the hospital because we we're headed there at 5 am the next morning to be induced to have our first child. Nerves were high.

And then the phone rang. And it was canceled. Our daughter wasn't coming and I was crushed. I was stuck in a house, my mom was stuck in a hotel so close by, and our daughter wasn't coming.

I spent the afternoon crying in our room, embarrassed at how childish I probably appeared to my in-laws. I wanted to meet her more than anything and because of the blizzard, she wouldn't be coming.

I don't remember anything about that evening but I do remember waking up on the morning of the 2nd and laying in bed, depressed, again, because she wouldn't be coming. I got up for the day, went on about my business and tried to be happy. They'd rescheduled my appointment for Saturday, she was still going to be here but Saturday seemed like it would take forever to arrive. I didn't want to have her on Saturday, I wanted to have her on the 2nd.

As the afternoon wore on, I started feeling a little funny and thought that maybe my water had broken. It was definitely not the gush I had envisioned but something was going on. I put on fresh clothes, laid down for a nap and woke up to find that that something that had been going on was still happening. I got dressed, packed the hospital bag and we braved the snow covered roads to get to Labor and Delivery.

My water had not broken, they weren't really sure what was going on, it didn't seem to be anything of concern. But since I was there, and they had space, and if my doctor OK'd it, they'd go ahead and admit me since I was supposed to be there anyways. The doctor OK'd it and we we're going to have a baby.

Heart beating out of my chest.

I had come into the hospital wearing winter clothing, they put me in a hospital gown and wanted me to get down the hall to the room where I'd be delivering. I was in a hospital gown and black Ugg boots. I felt strange, unprepared, especially in my boots fearing the whole time my backside was exposed to the world. We got set up in our delivery room, Paul kissed my forehead, went to get my mom, some lunch and our hospital bag from the car.

It was happening.

They tried inducing my that afternoon but the first medication hadn't been placed properly, I wasn't progressing so they stopped, let me eat some greasy Pizza Hut pizza as a last meal and gave me an Ambien to sleep through the night. Paul slept next to me in a recliner and before we knew it, it was 5 am on Thursday morning and in less than twelve hours we'd be meeting our daughter.
   
We woke up slowly, lazily. Only to find the hours we're flying by. Paul spent some time walking around, grabbing himself some food and talking with me. I was dilating about a cm an hour and the rest of my family had shown up to see us.

Things we're going good. I was calm and relaxed. Baby was sounding good and my blood pressure was pretty outstanding.

It was about 2:30 in the afternoon and my nurse Krystal had come in to check on our progress only to find out we had gone from 6 cm to 9.5 cm in about 30 minutes. My doctor was informed, things we're to start being prepared, she was going to run across the street, come right back and we we're going to have a baby.

After about 30 minutes, my doctor's resident and my nurse decided to get me to do a practice push. It worked, things we're rolling and that practice push turned into real pushing. Pushing that was harder and more life sucking than anything I had ever imagined. I'd had an epidural, I wasn't supposed to be in so much pain and so tired. But I was. It was the hardest thing I've ever done and twice laid my head back and told the three people in the room that I couldn't do it. It was hard.

I remember being told, "this will be the push, if you push hard enough." I pushed with everything I had, felt the strangest sensations and heard the most beautiful cry in the entire world. I was exhausted, Paul was crying, my baby was crying and there were more nurses in my room than I knew what to do with. Everywhere I looked there was someone doing something. It was organized chaos and I couldn't focus on anything for more than two seconds.

And then everything slowed down. Like way down. And I was in the room, with my baby and my husband and my life was forever changed.