I had an appointment with my doctor Monday 4/2 at 4:30. She'd been out on jury duty and I guess assumed she'd be done that day, but she didn't finish and her waiting room was full of people, even after the receptionist and all the other doctors had gone home.

She'd warned us the previous week that she would want to induce if G hadn't come on her own by the 2nd. I was conflicted about this, because even though her calculations had me at 40+6 that day, I still thought there was a good chance I was only 40+2. But we packed everything in the car (except DH's cell phone, it turned out), dropped the dog off at daycare, and went to the appointment prepared to stay. Over the weekend I went to three acupuncture appointments and listened to tons of Hypnobabies tracks.

At the appointment, my blood pressure was good (for the first time in a month!) and I was still feeling good (though my feet had just that afternoon swelled up to be puffy pregnancy feet), but my doctor explained that regardless of my true due date, the baby's head was as high as she'd expect it to be at 36 weeks--not good whether I was 40+2 or 40+6. She wanted to start the induction that night with the Cervidil, which she said would start giving me cramps toward morning, and then when she came in at 7:30, she'd start the Pitocin. If that didn't help by the end of the day, she'd give me a few hours break and start the whole thing again the next night. In her opinion, I wasn't a particularly great candidate for induction, and when we pressed her she said she saw about a 25% chance for a c-section. I felt really strongly that I didn't want to endure a 3-day induction and then end up with a c-section after that. She was really great about answering our questions and not making us feel rushed, even though we knew there were tons of women waiting to see her. She told us she'd talk for two hours if we wanted, but it ended up being 20-30 minutes, I think.

So we went to L&D and got checked into Room 3. The nurse was really nice. She read the birth plan, even though we knew aspects of it were going to change. My doctor came in after her last patient (around 7:30) and inserted the Cervidil (which was pretty uncomfortable). Then DH had to leave to get his cell phone, and she told him to bring me my favorite meal. So he went away and came back two hours later with a two cheeseburger meal from McDonald's, with a McFlurry. We ate and then decided to try to get some rest. I was hooked up to the monitors and everything was fine, but I started to get crampy around 10-10:30. I tried to sleep but I was afraid I would be awake all night because of the discomfort. They weren't really painful--just annoying.

At almost midnight, I got up to use the bathroom, and when I got back into bed, my water broke (thoop! thoop!). I called the nurse, who came to check but was prepared to say it wasn't really my waters. To her surprise, it was. At that point I knew we'd be having an April 3 baby.

I don't really remember how the contractions started, but they started quick and strong. DH called my doula and told her my water had broken. She said she'd be there in about an hour. I was getting very uncomfortable. The contractions amped up so quickly that I didn't have time to try to use hypnosis to get through them. They were immediately every two or three minutes apart with very little time in between, and they grew in intensity. I had wireless monitors so I could sit on the yoga ball, but it got to be unbearable pretty fast. The way I describe it is that it feels like something horrible is chasing you and you can't get away from it. It just keeps overtaking you. I threw up my cheeseburgers, which wasn't fun but actually was the least of my worries.

I decided I wanted an epidural but I wasn't sure how long I should wait to get it (I didn't want to slow things down), but the nurse told me there was no reason to wait, so we said yes we were ready. And hallelujah, I'd already signed the consent form. It took probably 10-15 minutes from my asking for the epidural to the woman actually coming in and administering it. I was in horrible pain and DH was really stressed out by it. He held me while the anesthesiologist inserted the needle (which didn't bother me at all) and then it was just about waiting until the medicine kicked in, which took about seven or eight minutes--though things started improving right away. As soon as the epidural kicked in, I felt so much better. It was like heaven.

Then the nurse checked me and found that I was 3-4 centimeters dilated. The doula showed up, and we felt badly because I just planned to try to sleep and I didn't want her to be there all night doing nothing (she's five months pregnant herself). So she stayed for a little while and then went home. I tried to get some sleep, which I'm sure I did, but it didn't feel like much. I listened to my Hypnobabies tracks and relaxed. I felt so much better, even though I got the shakes.

We rested for a few hours and then the nurse came in to check on me. She'd talked to my doctor because the baby didn't seem to like the rapid pace of my contractions. She wasn't recovering very well after each one. By 2:30-3 am, I was dilated to 5-6 centimeters. Then we began the process of looking for a position that would take pressure off the baby's head, which basically involved me turning onto my left side or my right side, and at one point onto my back. They gave me a shot of something to slow my contractions and an oxygen mask to wear as well. I was feeling a little refluxy because they wanted me pretty much flat, but overall I was comfortable. They also gave me a shot of Zofran for the reflux/nausea.

I went back to resting. I was shaking pretty constantly, but they put warm blankets over my shoulders and that seemed to help. I also did a lot of relaxation visualizations, of the relaxation spreading from the top of my head down the various parts of my body. I would feel a deep, comfortable peace as the shaking stopped. But they came to check me a lot and that always started the shaking back up. At some point I developed a fever, so they gave me antibiotics and took away my warm towels (they replace them with ice packs).

I was still very relaxed and feeling good, which I attribute to my hypnosis training and breathing.

At around 5-6 am, they checked me and I was 9 cm dilated and almost completely effaced. The baby was getting very low. So we just had to wait until my doctor came. We called the doula, who came right away and slept in the chair in the corner of the room. I ended up getting Tylenol around 7:30 am and then at 8, my doctor wanted me to push (because of all the various factors at play). I didn't feel any urge to push but I wanted to do what was right for the baby, and I knew I'd had lots of time to labor the baby down between 6 and 8.

There was a shift change and the new nurse read the birth plan even though a lot of it had gone out the window. She was great about the fact that I wanted a calm pushing environment. We started at 8:30. I couldn't feel a thing so I relied on the nurse's cues when I was having a contraction. At this point they spaced out a bit, so it wasn't non-stop. Between contractions we would all talk. The room was bright and sunny and the whole atmosphere felt perfect to me.

Pushing was very lovely and relaxed. During contractions I would push, taking great care to keep my face and mouth relaxed and push the energy toward the baby. Because of either the hypnosis breathing I'd been doing for seven weeks and/or the exercise I'd been getting, I didn't get winded at all and we made good progress. Instead of pushing three times with each contraction, I pushed four. Before long the nurse could see the baby's head getting lower.

By 9:15, she went to get my doctor, who'd been helping out with a c-section. She came in and told me I was her star patient. She'd been worried about when I would deliver (because she had to be at jury duty) and she was pleased that I was ready right then. The nurse called in some NICU nurses because of my fever, but the doctor had them stay off to the side. She knew we wanted to do skin to skin right away and delay the vitamin K and eye ointment if possible.

The doctor directed my pushing at this point. She had a little more "push push push push!" energy than the nurse had, but I figured she had her reasons. Then at one point she told me not to push hard, but to push very lightly, to get the baby down around the bone. So I did... and G was born. She cried and they put her on my chest. Her APGARs were eight and nine, and she didn't have any apparent problems, so the NICU nurses hung back.

DH didn't want to cut the cord, so my doula did it. I had a second-degree tear, which the doctor stitched up. At some point she delivered the placenta, and there was a good deal of bleeding (I'm told). They started the pitocin drip in my IV to help with that while we hung out with the baby. DH wiped her down while she was on my chest. Then she and I spent a few minutes looking at each other. She was so pretty, with such delicate little features. She looks like a little lady. She has brown hair, cute little eyebrows, a defined chin, DH's ears, and eyes we can't tell the color of (gray?). And she definitely has my nose!

The NICU nurses were getting impatient, so the doctor told them to come back in an hour. Then she had to run to get to the courthouse. She promised to come by at the end of the day.

As I started to get feeling back in my legs, they put me in a wheelchair and took me and G to the recovery room while DH and the doula followed with all my many, many bags of stuff. The room looked the same but we didn't like the nurses as much. They would disappear for hours after saying they were going to get something. The baby nurses came back and did all of G's measurements--7 pounds 11.5 ounces, 21.5 inches long--and bathed her, and gave her a vitamin K shot and her eye ointment. Then we hung out for a while, and around lunchtime, my doula went home to get some sleep.

G took to breastfeeding right away, though she was like a little piranha with her chompy little jaw. By 10 pm the first night I was very uncomfortable and tired, so they gave her some formula while I rested. Thankfully, it didn't seem to cause any confusion. DH stayed up with her. He also changed her dirty diapers and tried to swaddle her (though we suck at swaddling with blankets... thank God for swaddling suits). DH fell asleep and I fed G again and then fell asleep with her in bed with me. The nurses came in every hour or two, which was really annoying.

My doctor offered to let us go home the next day and we took it. We wanted to be home in our own space.

The pediatrician came in the morning and gave the okay for the baby's discharge. Then we waited all afternoon for the hearing test and left around 5:30.

Overall, my doula was so impressed by how much the doctor respected our wishes despite the various interventions. She said she was going to ask her own doctor a bunch of questions and consider switching to mine if hers didn't answer satisfactorily! So I'm really grateful for that.