She made it! And I guess it turns out I did, too. I hate to belabor the subject of my labor, but here's how it happened...

At about 3 am on Tuesday I started having more real pains than what I had felt up to that point so I thought for sure we'd be in the hospital later that day. Chris even canceled the ride-along he had scheduled for work. But we went ahead about our day, and although the pains were real and often scary, nothing happened. In fact, I was still having the same pains at 3 am the next morning, so that was delightful. The induction was scheduled for 7:30 that morning, and that's when we got started. Most of the time between then and 6:30 pm was spent just anticipating, mixed in with such events as getting my IV, getting my water broken, and getting the epidural. None of those were as awful as I had expected, by the way, so I was happy about that. I did have a reaction to the epidural - my blood pressure dropped really low and I almost lost consciousness; that was scary. But the anesthesiologist, Dr. Stetler, was seriously wonderful and he brought me back pretty quick. My nurse Misti was fantastic too; she laughed heartily at most of Chris' boredom-induced jokes and she was really good about answering questions and explaining everything we did. Plus she loaded me up with popsicles and ice chips, and who doesn't love that while you're in labor? They had to go in and put an internal monitor on Olive's head and one in my uterus in order to track my contractions and her heart rate; for some reason the external monitors weren't working for me. And there was a bit of worry because every time I had a contraction Olive's heart rate dropped pretty significantly. We weren't sure how she'd be able to handle it when I would surely start having harder longer ones later on. So there was talk of a possible C-section. Chris and I said a little prayer together, and sure enough she started improving after a little while. The other red flag was that there was meconium in the amniotic fluid, and if Olive ingested or aspirated it that could mean infection. Then later I started getting a high fever - something around 102 degrees - and that was bad news for Olive too. So needless to say, things got a little stressful. I started actually pushing at 6:35 in the evening. Two hours of what seemed like unproductive pushing went by. I couldn't seem to get her past my pubic bone. Dr. England, my awesome doctor, suggested we use a little help from the vacuum; I was worried but Jenny reassured me that a couple of her kids had needed it and it would be fine. It seems like everything happened really fast after that. Chris will have to tell you things from his perspective at that point because all I know is that one minute I was pushing, pushing, pushing (and maybe even screaming a little), and the next minute I had the biggest feeling of relief in the world. She was out. The cord was wrapped around her neck, so Dr. England took care of that right away. And then they took her a few feet away where Dr. Stetler intubated her and cleaned out any meconium she had gotten a hold of. They did a bunch of other stuff to her too, and all I could do was cry and ask to see her. They finally gave her to us, and Chris and I bawled our eyes out. He definitely cried more than I did, but we were so happy and in awe that she was actually there with us. We spent the next 48 hours in room 213 recovering and not really resting at all. Olive had to stay in the nursery on an IV of antibiotics and some sugary stuff. But they brought her to me every few hours so we could work on feeding and bonding. I won't lie, the breast feeding was tough at first and she and I both got a little sad and frustrated, but with the help of the lactation specialist we got the hang of it. And now she's a little piglet! I was discharged late last night, but Olive had to stay because she has jaundice (has jaundice? is jaundiced? how do you say it?) She's under the bili lights till at least tomorrow morning. It was heartbreaking for me to leave her there, but we've been going back every couple of hours to feed her and to bring what I've pumped. Chris has been the best pumper-helper in the world, by the way. We miss her a lot, and can't wait to bring her home with us.

It's actually time right now for us to go over and see her. I love my little girl!