We went out for dinner and had a baby for dessert...

He's here! He's here! Read all about it!
(Note--this is a labor and delivery story, so if you are squeamish or disgusted by such, perhaps you should skip this one.)

Thursday morning, my midwife, Georgianna, stripped my membranes saying that I was dilated to a 5 (half-way there!) and if my body was ready, that should put me into labor within 48 hours.

All Thursday & Friday, I walked around with such anticipation--analyzing every pain & movement. Is it time? Is it time yet? When I hadn't felt much by Friday afternoon, I'd pretty much decided he just wasn't ready and was gearing myself up for another 2 weeks of pregnant discomfort. I made arrangements for a babysitter to come watch the kids and then called Allen and told him we were going out to dinner for a little pre-Valentines Day romance...

4:00 pm, Friday--I was starting to feel some back pain and what I thought were regular contractions; however, they did not feel urgent enough to put me in a panic and I just kept going about preparing for the evening.

5:00 pm--Allen came home from work and I mentioned to him that perhaps we should take along our hospital bags, just in case, and make a quick stop at the hospital before or after dinner. Of course, that got him all kinds of excited. He began throwing essentials into bags, bags into the car, all the while telling the kids we were going to go out and have the baby tonight. I, however, was still pretty skeptical.

6:00 pm--With the car loaded up, we started out on our date. Whether we hit the restaurant or the hospital first hadn't been decided, but they were both in the same direction, so we headed that way. I still didn't feel much pain or urgency and my fear of embarrassment at being turned away at the hospital led me to choose restaurant first. Besides, if I was going to pull an all-nighter, I wanted some good food in my belly first!

6:30 pm--We pulled into Bangkok Thai. I was having contractions about every 3-5 minutes, in which I would rethink my decision to skip the hospital for now. "Maybe we should go to the hospital first..." I would say. Then, "Naw! It's nothing!" Same thing happened in the restaurant. We stood at the counter for an equivalent of about 2 contractions, in which I went back and forth between sitting down for a meal or getting it to go and heading over to the hospital...just in case. (It still was so bearable, I really thought I was imagining things.) We ended up having a sitdown meal, in which the hostess seating us asked me if I was hoping to go into labor (probably by having spicy food.) I smiled between contractions and told her that was hopefully the plan.

7:30 pm--After a fairly rushed (but absolutely divine) meal, we were walking into the hospital. I walked a little more slowly, but was not in too much pain. As we checked in with the nurses, I laughed and told them it was probably false labor, but go ahead and check me anyway.

7:45 pm--My nurse checked me, told me I was at a 7 with steady contractions about 2 minutes apart and that I was going to have a baby that night.

8:00 pm--I was still in such little pain that I started to gear myself up for a really long night of contractions, thinking they would just get worse and worse. The first thing I did was get into the whirlpool tub and crank the heat up high. I was still laughing and smiling and thinking perhaps this was all a joke. Each contraction that came, I just relaxed and breathed my way through it.

8:20 pm--The tub was too hot. The contractions were becoming more painful. I crawled out and walked around restlessly, wondering how I could endure it for a whole night.

8:35 pm--Georgianna checked me, discovering that I was between and 8-9, and asked if I wanted to "do something about it." Still scared about what lay ahead, but wanting to get on with things, I said to go for it.

8:45 pm--Georgianna broke my water and told me to start pushing. I expected the contractions to get worse, but they didn't. In fact, I barely even noticed them after that. I'll spare you the gory details of all the messy parts, but after about 10 minutes of pushing, I had him at...

8:59 pm--It was Friday the 13th. After the head and shoulders were out, Allen got to pull the rest of his slippery body out. (He said he was really afraid of dropping him...) He is beautiful and perfect and he is here!!! The whole ordeal, from start to finish, took less than 5 hours.