Well, if anyone bet 1/29/00 for Shirley’s baby pool as the arrival of our newest doper, you’da won!
Here’s the dope:
On the 28th, after moving my husbands half of his closet from the old closet to the new closet, I decided to lay down to take a nap. Something inside me told me this weekend was going to be ‘it’ and not to do too much.
I woke up to my water breaking. ( More like a trickle.) But no contractions. I called my doctor and she said come on into the hospital after a couple of hours if nothing happens. Called hubby and said he might want to come home and fortunately he beat a terrible jam on the highway and was home in 30 minutes.
Took our son to the inlaws. Went out to dinner. Moseyed into the hospital at 730p and was admitted. Nothing was happening and I wandered the hallways feeling useless and joking with the nurses. My doc shows up and we joke and BS for well over an hour before she realizes that I’m not in labor at all. I offer to move heavy furniture to get things going.
I’m given the option to induce ( pitocin) that night, or wait until morning and try to get a good nights sleep and induce then if nothings started. I figured things would start on their own while I slept, so I opted to wait until morning.I took some sleeping pills and went to bed about midnight. Hubby slept in a chair.
I woke up about 3a hotter than hell. Going to the bathroom, my bowels told me “it was coming” before the contractions. I had probably slept through the lighter contractions and found these managable for about 30 minutes. I hit the shower thinking the warm water would really relax me, but they were hitting really hard and I started shaking violently. It seems that I went from 1cm to about 6 cm in about forty five minutes. Wheeee.
Got an epidural within five minutes of asking for it. Hubby woke up with seeing me with a roomful of people and a needle in my back. I joked with the anistesiologist (sp?) that his service was faster than the drive thru at Mc Donalds. This was about 430a or so, I guess. It’s blurry. The pain instantly went away and the merriment resumed in the room.
I sat their with my doctor and nurse bullshitting until I started to feel this special little tingle down there. It was akin to being aroused and I gave my husband one last shot at nudge nudge wink wink before the cut off. He declined, citing headache 
THAT was my body’s urge to push. It was nothing like the last time, which was overwhelming.
I felt really silly trying to push because there was no massive urgency and really wasn’t until the last few minutes. Everything was really surreal and very calm. It was like, " Oh here comes another one. Grab the ankles and push like you are pooping and,gee, what other fact can I amaze the staff with?"
The really really cool thing was I got to see my daughter’s head as it S-L-O-W-L-Y moved down the birth canal and what is mind blowing is that I was the only person who could get the job done. My breathing from the first time around was nothing compared to this, I only had to do the panting in the last push.
Once again, our room must have been the fun room because we had a people popping in and out chatting with us, but it wasn’t like with my son, which that hospital ( the parent one of the one where I was at) is a teaching hospital and had a constant stream of spectators. At one point during pushing my mom said something profound, like, " Oh my" which struck me as very funny and I started laughing. This, I’ve been assured of by the staff, is a rarity for women in labor.
On a scale of 1-10 ( One being Sucky. Ten being Wahoo.), I give the entire experience a 9.7, but you can’t dance to it.
Here’s the stats:
Teagan O’Hara Arndt weighed in at 6 # 15 oz , 20 inches long. She has a full head of blackish hair and scored 8/9 on APGAR, which, I’ve been told, cannot be added to her SAT’s.
We actually got 5 hour stretch in last night of sleep. I know THAT’s not going to last.
I feel great, but am not overdoing it and am letting my mom hover over the baby while I hide upstairs feeling my breasts enlarge to parade float proprotions until the next feeding, then I will take a nap.