When we left off in Part 1, the admissions nurse informed me that I had gone to the wrong hospital because my doctor didn’t deliver at this location.

The nurse said I could be taken care of by their on call doctor if I didn’t want to drive to the other location. My husband argued with them that we were told to come here and that we were under the impression that my doctor recently had recieved privileges at this location. I was in so much pain that we stopped arguing and said fine, we don’t care who delivers this baby just GIVE ME AN EFFING EPIDURAL!

The nurse took me into a triage room and told me I couldn’t have the epidural until they ran more blood work because they didn’t have my records since I went to the wrong hospital. It would take about 30-45 minutes. I wanted to throw that nurse across the room when she told me that. I was clearly in a LOT of pain, so they did try to hurry the best they could, and it helped that Labor and Delivery was slow that night. The nurses drew blood, checked vitals, and tried to lighten the mood saying that I’d have a funny story about going to the wrong hospital. We didn’t think it was funny and I seriously wanted them to just shut up and leave me alone.

They finally did a cervical check atm445am and I was dilated to a “good 6″. Turns out, the rest of the bag of water was bulging, I was fully effaced, and the baby was so low she was about to fall out. Apparently, it was like I was dilated to a 9 with everything else, which is why I was in so much pain and feeling the urge to push.

My husband continued to help me through contractions but we were getting absolutely no break from the pain. It was horrible and I was definitely cursing and yelling (numerous f-bombs were dropped). We couldn’t even worry about the doctor issue at this point, I was in too much pain. At 515, my new BFF the anesthesiologist came in and gave me the epidural. I jumped with the numbing shot (it stung!) but that was the worst part. Within a minute, I started feeling relief.

Oh. My. God. The whole labor experience changed after this. They checked me again, and I was dilated to a 7 after about 5 hours of labor. The on-call doctor came in to talk with us, and nurses were in and out getting us set up. We didn’t even get a chance to address what to do about my doctor.

At 645, shift change happened and the new nurse (Nurse Awesome) came in to meet us. She was my favorite person that day (you’ll see why later). We told her what happened, and she said she would go talk with the new on-call doctor. She was extremely sympathetic and wanted to help us with the situation. My dad and stepmom arrived at this point and came into visit for a few minutes.

Around 730am, Nurse Awesome frantically runs into my room and asks me if my doctors name was Dr. X. I said yes, and she informed me that the new on-call doctor KNEW my doctor and said yes, he does deliver here. 5 minutes later, she came back in and said he was on his way and would be there soon. Instantly, I felt a huge sense of relief—I really like my doctor and was super happy he would be the one to deliver my baby.

Before I go further, we made a mistake early in the morning. We should have called the office number for my doctor and gotten the number for the on-call doctor. My doctor practices with his wife, so they are basically always on-call. The funny thing was that right as she was coming to tell us he was on his way, it occurred to me to call that number. Too many emotions and lot of pain was why neither of us thought of this earlier.

My doctor must have literally jumped in his car and ran out the door, because he was there by 8am. Ooooh—he was not happy about the situation. He also had sent my records over on November 9th, and even knew the name of the person who received them. I was just thrilled that he showed up so quickly. I’m sure someone got an earful though.

My doctor checked me as soon as he arrived and I was dilated to a 9. He broke my water at this point—it was leaking likely from the top or side but did NOT want to break. Baby Girl hadn’t gotten any lower at this point, and my bag of water was likely the reason why. The medical staff ended up leaving us alone for nearly an hour after this, so we took this time to respond to the massive text messages we sent out to friends and other family members earlier that morning.

I was checked again at 845 and was fully dilated and Baby Girl had dropped a bit. My doctor said I could start pushing or wait an hour, rest up, and see if she dropped more. I decided to wait an hour since she dropped lower since he had broken my water. Anything to shorten the pushing phase!

At 945, I started pushing and luckily she HAD dropped even lower. Woohoo! I had no pain, but I could feel the pressure from the contractions so I knew when to push. Nurse Awesome loved that she didn’t have to tell me when to push—I knew a contraction was coming before the machine picked it up. She asked me to tell her when I felt a contraction and was going to push.

During the next 25-30 minutes, we had a good ole’ time with Nurse Awesome while I pushed. We talked sports, Life in Austin, food, babies, and about other random topics. She kept commenting that she couldn’t believe I wasn’t in pain AND still could feel when to push. She called my doctor about 30 minutes later and he came in for the rest of the delivery. We continued the light hearted conversation, and the doctor kept joking that all of his patients were like me, and that I was an awesome pregnant person. There was a lot of laughing and joking around going on, and not really any “stress”. We turned on music…Will uses an app called Songza and we found a labor playlist. We joked about how I bounced on a yoga ball for 2 hours during the Ohio State game the day before, and how I probably knocked the baby loose.

The pediatric nurses came in about 15 minutes before I delivered and I think they thought we were all batty. I’m pushing a baby out and we’re having conversations about how Will needed to change the song because our kid cannot be born during a Lifehouse song. Oh and I was making lunch plans—they brought me a menu and I was ready to order something as soon as this baby was out of me.

Around 1040am, the doctor told me the next push would likely get her head out. I needed to push, then wait for his direction, and push again to get her shoulders out. He told Will to get ready—this was when things started getting intense (emotionally, all I felt was a lot of pressure and an urge to push). Baby Girl was about to be born!

When the next contraction came, I pushed as hard as I could. I apparently did a pretty good job, because I basically pushed most of her body out with that push. Oops? I pushed one more time and she was out, at 1047am and almost exactly and hour of pushing. We had a daughter! She was born with “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys playing in the background.

The next few minutes were a blur, but certain things I remember very clearly. They wiped her down for a few seconds and then threw her on my chest. We were so overwhelmed and so in love with her immediately. This will go down as one of my favorite moments with my husband. It was amazing. She stared at us, and we stared at her. She was so TINY, and was very calm, and I got to keep her on my chest for nearly 40 minutes while the doctor took care of everything down under (I’ll go into recovery in the next post but nothing major happened). Finally, Will took her to the nurses to be weighed and measured–she was 6lbs 15oz and 19.5 inches long.

Will went with her to get her first bath and tell our families what happened (they were going insane…they thought I had been pushing for 2.5 hours since they hadn’t heard from us..oops?). I needed to wait until I could stand on my own before I could leave the room, so I was alone for about an hour (Will was with Madeleine and our families). During this time, they checked her out again, bathed her, and swaddled her. I texted everyone I knew and ordered lunch. I ordered a grilled cheese, chips, and soup. Then an hour later, I made Will get more food for me, as I was ready for round 2.

Around 1pm, I felt like I could stand so the nurses unhooked everything and I got into a wheelchair and they wheeled me to the postpartum room. After what felt like an eternity, they brought sweet Baby Girl back in.

We spent the rest of the day visiting with our families, snuggling with our daughter, and trying to sleep when we could. In my next post, I’ll talk a little but about the rest of the hospital stay and my recovery (as a teaser: my kid kicked off the monitor to make sure she wasn’t taken from the PP wing and set off the alarms in the middle of the night).

I had “Birth Preferences”, most of which included no medical intervention except for an epidural and immediate skin-to-skin. I had an open mind since I didn’t know what would happen. I’m happy to say that my labor and delivery went exactly how I had hoped it would–I had a great hospital birth experience. I think there were several reasons our experience was so awesome–my hospital is “women centered”, I like and trust my doctor (and he leans against any intervention in a “normal” pregnancy), I was very educated on birth and interventions, my husband knew our wishes, and I had good luck on my side. I’m very fortunate, and I am grateful that everything turned out so wonderful.