Timeline

Ok, for those of you who asked, here's the timeline of my birth story. For those of you who did NOT ask, sorry for the details! For those of you who want more grossness, you know where to find me!

Friday night/Saturday:
4pm - go to library where woman behind me in line tells me I'm never going to read any of the books I'm checking out. She is right.
5pm - go to Old Navy to buy summer maternity clothes because it is HOT out and I'm obviously going to be pregnant forever. I started having some "weird feelings" but I thought I had eaten something funny. Ha.
545pm - more "weird feelings" and it dawns on me that this might be real. I call Mike on my drive home from Old Navy.
615pm - I call MJ and say "it doesn't really hurt so could this be it?"...I am obviously stupid/naive.
615pm-midnight (good thing I have emails with MJ to reread - I would have forgotten all of this) - contractions get more intense but I can doze/read magazines in between. I also call my dad/stepmom and tell them to await a phone call in the morning (they don't wait - they left NJ at 6am).
Midnight - OH MY. this hurts A LOT.
1am - I have a few back-to-back contractions. WHOA. This kills. I call MD and say "I had a few two minutes apart" and she says "come in when they are consistently every 3-5 minutes". UGH.
1am-2am - I basically sit in the tub with my shower over me and cry every eight minutes
3am - Mike calls MD again and says that I can't talk during contractions. They are still every eight minutes but Mike totally lies (thank goodness) and says they are every 5-6 minutes.
4am - we arrive at hospital where RN is TOTALLY skeptical and sort of mocks my infrequent contractions. Then she checks me and I'm 5cm dilated...all of a sudden, she and the other RN start taking me seriously. Not that I'm in a mood to say anything but I totally wanted to yell that I knew I was pretty far along.
5am-8am - 6cm dilated, epidural, dozing, calling my parents to say they should start driving up (and then finding out that they are already midway here). Also, epidurals are AWESOME.
10am - 9cm dilated but head not engaged
noon - 10cm!
1230pm - start pushing
230pm - two hours later...still pushing! Head is apparently stuck a bit. Some discussion about a C section but we are making progress so we don't really discuss it further.
330pm - still pushing! Epidural wears off on right side. WHOA PAIN. Also the baby's heartrate doesn't recover quickly after contractions so I can't push with every contraction (turns out this is because the cord was around her neck).
330pm to 423pm - Mike keeps telling me he can see the head (with brown hair!) and I mostly just cry that I am too tired to push.
423pm - BABY!!! YAY! Best feeling in the world!!! They put her on my chest - they had already cut her cord before she was fully out (because she was blue). Someone asked ME if it was a boy or a girl - I was so confused and I couldn't understand why no one knew yet! So I looked...and I was SHOCKED!!! A girl!!!

It was an amazing feeling - we just took turns holding her and laughing and crying and kissing!

That's it!!!