The best day of my life started at 2:30am. I woke up to the pain of a contraction, but convinced myself it was probably just the bad Chinese food I had the night before. Two days earlier I was sent home from the hospital after a false alarm (4 hour nightmare in Labor & Delivery) so I was determined to ride it out before jumping to any conclusions. I laid in bed for a while, too uncomfortable to sleep and finally got up to watch television, all the while trying not to think about the cramps. I was almost a week overdue (an eternity to a pregnant lady) and scheduled to be induced two days later. The past several weeks were full of on and off contractions, all of which had me thinking labor was near, but of course nothing ever happened. At this point I was convinced my baby would never come.
The Hubs got up for work at 4:45am to find me watching I Love Lucy. I told him the contractions were probably nothing and he should go on to work. I was so scared it might be another false alarm, so I didn't make a big deal about it or jinx anything. Although the contractions were getting closer, I wasn't in very much pain so I decided to just relax. Hubs went to work, I ate breakfast and went about my day.
I ran a few errands, watched the Price is Right, and went for a walk. The contractions were getting stronger and closer together, so I was finally starting to believe it might just be the real deal. Around 11:00am my contractions were strong enough to stop me in my tracks, forcing me to concentrate and breath through it. I called my doc and told her what was going on. She's really relaxed, so basically told me to come in if I wanted...I think she was reluctant to get too excited considering the false alarm two days earlier, so I decided to hold out a little while longer just to be sure.
About ten minutes later I was in enough pain to call the Hubs and tell him to head home, I knew it had to be the real deal this time. We live about thirty minutes from his work, so by the time he got home I was having some crazy contractions. We had already packed our hospital bag, so we headed out right away.
We were so excited and couldn't stop smiling on the drive to the hospital. We were told by several people that I should eat before going to the hospital, because I wouldn't want to show up starving. So naturally we decided to stop at Chick-fil-A. Who doesn't want a chicken sandwich while they're in labor? We went in, ordered some grub and sat down to our last meal as husband and wife, childless that is. It was amazing. Contractions were pretty annoying at this point and I remember having a mouthful of french fries during a particularly bad one. We scarfed our food and got on the road.
We arrived at the doctor's office about 15 minutes later. I didn't want to go into Labor and Delivery until I was positive it was real labor, so we opted to have the doc check me in her office. I remember laying there, lemonade in hand, holding my breath and praying I was dilated enough to make it official...
Doc smiled and said, "Wow, you're definitely in labor, 6 cm dilated! Head on over to Labor and Delivery."
I asked if she was joking and immediately began crying. I was so freakin' happy to finally be in labor. And absolutely elated to be dilated to 6cm. Hell ya, it was the real deal this time and our baby was on the way. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. Hubs and I started laughing and jumping around in excitement. Doc told us she had never seen someone so happy to be in labor.
What a way to start Friday the 13th!
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