Warning: Longer than I had expected

So now that our new baby company has come and gone, I have no one to talk to, so I'd like to welcome myself back to the blogging world. This post ended up MUCH longer than I had anticipated, but I want to have it written down for my own personal record. (I kept the blood and gore to myself.)

3:15 am Tues June 2, I woke up having contractions. Around 5:30 I decided I might have a baby today and since my hair never looks decent when I've given birth, I thought a I'd take a shower and make myself presentable in between contractions. Rob would come in every few minutes and say, "another one will be here in about 30 seconds, do you want to go sit down?" What a great husband.

7:45 I called the midwife on-call and she said to come to the birthing pavilion. Since I have bad luck and always get sent home I opted to go into the clinic to be checked. Dropped kids off at the Fords and I went in and was a 2. Cry cry cry. We went back to the Fords to get the kids, I made Rob go to work (why miss work for a false alarm right?) Andrea was kind enough to let me take a nap in her guest bedroom while she watched my kids (after listening to me cry.) Another friend came and picked up Claire for school and Claire ran in and jumped on me to give me a kiss (right in the middle of another contraction, I'm amazed I didn't scream/hurt her.) I continued to nap, waking every 3-5 minutes to have a contraction.

A little while later (after Claire left) I felt like pushing so I asked Andrea to take me back to the clinic. She was such a GREAT sport. She moved over car seats to our van, loaded 4 little boys into their car seats and drove me to the hospital. She was a gem, on the 7 minute drive she was suddenly VERY interested on what the baby's coming home outfit looked like, I knew she was trying to distract me from screaming and scarring the little boys in the back for life, so I gave in. She dropped me off, again I opted for the stairs rather than the elevator (every little bit helps) and the planets aligned and I was (finally) at 4 cm.

A sweet nurse grabbed a wheelchair to wheel me to the birthing pavilion, but being the stubborn woman I am, I opted to walk. This is not a walk across the courtyard folks. Dartmouth-Hitchcock is ENORMOUS! It was about a half a mile to get from the clinic to the birthing pavilion. Probably planned out that way for women like me to dilate further on the walk, in order to have the baby faster.

I got a room and was instructed to change, but instead I laid on the couch to whimper/moan for a few minutes. When the nurse walked in (who looked JUST like a friend I had in middle/high school) I told her I was ready for an epidural when they were. In other words, I'm about to start cursing like a sailor, so if you would please help me to continue to be lady-like, that would be great.

A half hour later the epidural was in. I napped for a few minutes here and there, the midwife and a student midwife (who looks JUST like ANOTHER friend from HS, it was like the bizzaro world from Seinfeld) came back and checked me 2 hours later and I was a 10. I pushed for 15 minutes, then Adam was born.

Now for the weird part. My friend Adrienne from the ward was due the day after me. She has scheduled c-sections so we both knew she would have her baby first. She was scheduled to have her baby that day, June 2nd. Rob and I knew she was there being "hacked" open, but we were a little busy with our own excitement. A few hours after Adam was born her husband stopped by and later that night I went to visit her down the hall. Their baby weighed the same as Adam, was born 5 hours earlier than Adam, same day, same hospital, same ward, but to different families. Adrienne and I like to joke that our babies were up in heaven fighting over who got to go to their family and who was coming to ours. Either Ronin was pushed by Adam (to go to their crazy family) or Ronin was faster (beating Adam into the cooler family) which one it is, I am still unsure.