I waddle to the car, still ugly crying. The next time I get into this car and pull into this driveway I will have a child in tow. I take a minute and look around while breathing through another freaking contraction, look up at the sky and see black clouds in the distance. Oh shit, we have got to move now. A storm is coming. Its creeping up on rush hour and I'll be damned if I birth this baby in the car on the side of the highway. I start to panic yet again. Over and over in my mind I kept saying "must go faster, must go faster" imitating Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park. I keep looking behind us and the storm seems to be creeping up on us faster than Joel was driving the car. Now is not the time to drive like a grandmother, Joel. Now is the time to drive it like you stole it, but don't kill us.
Somehow, during the entire 30 minutes, while navigating the city in his car which has a manual transmission, Joel manages to hold my hand and talk me through every contraction I suffered through. They are getting closer together, about 8 minutes apart now and the pain is only getting worse. This must be what dying feels like. The pain has now started shooting down the front of my thighs. I'm being split in two. I feel it necessary to make Joel repeat my birth plan over and over again so I'm certain he understands what I want. He puts up with my irrationality and does as I request not two, but three times. "You want all the drugs and both of you not die. The End" he repeats.
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| The Best Dad from Day 1 |
Finally, we make it to the hospital. I see the epidural light at the end of this tunnel of labor. Or so I thought. Joel asks where we should park. Park? Hell no. We aren't wasting time driving around to the three different lots on three different city blocks to look for parking! We are going to valet this bitch, throw the keys at the kid in the orange vest and get this mama to the epidural man. STAT.
Step one, security. We have to check in at the security desk because crazy people have a tendency to steal babies. Of course the day I go into labor would be the same day they are training a new guy at the security desk. "I'm in labor, this is my baby daddy, I need an epidural now". Translation: Hurry the hell up new guy before I throat punch you. Joel trades his drivers license for his Labor and Delivery/Maternity ward badge. They ask me if I want a wheelchair. Nope. It felt better for me to stand up through the contractions and I felt like I could walk faster than Joel could push me. Step two, the elevators. I knew it. I predicted it. It took forever for the damn elevators to do their thing. Time for me was no longer counted in minutes, it was in contractions. It took three contractions for us to get from the car to here. Unacceptable. One more contraction in the elevator before we get to the L & D floor. And then I see it. The labor and deliver triage window. I swear there was a beam light shining down on this particular part of the hospital with angels humming in the background.
Step three, convince these people I'm in labor and to keep me. I waddle up to the window. "Hi, I'm in labor and I'd like my epidural now".
"Lets start with your name", the nurse replies. Yeah, she probably needs to know that. I tell her all my statistics and she gets me into a room in OVERFLOW TRIAGE. Apparently the insane storm made every pregnant woman in the city and county go into labor. So, regular old Triage was full. GREAT. Later, I'd find out that just ten minutes after Joel and I arrived at the hospital, the storm had caused a giant tree to fall over the JFX, the same highway that we'd taken to get to the hospital, closing the road for hours and causing numerous power outages. Thank you Mommy for making us leave the house when you did, or else we'd have to have name our baby "Jones Falls" after the road I'd deliver her on.
So far, my birth plan isn't working out. I'm already at the hospital and I haven't gotten the drugs yet. This is not good. The nurse escorts me to my room, I get undressed and put on the ever so flattering gown and wait. Two contractions later, finally a doctor. She asks how I'm doing and I reply "better now that you're here to give me my epidural". She laughs. Apparently, that's not how it works.
"Let's make sure you are really in labor so we can admit you." She replies.
I say something to the effect of "Excuse me. I'm not leaving. I've been contracting for over 12 hours. I'm miserable and I want the damn drugs. Get this baby out of me. I have a very specific birth plan and you are ignoring it".
This is where Joel interrupts me, grabs a hold of my hand, puts his other hand on my forehead, brushes my hair back and replies to the doctor, "Ok that sounds great, thank you". I probably hated him at that point, but looking back, I am in awe of how he took control of the situation while simultaneously calming me down. Proving to me once again that he is "the one".
They hook me up to the contraction monitor and we wait. Foreverrrrrr. Ok more like an hour, or as I like to call it 7.5 contractions. Finally they move us into regular triage. One step closer to my delivery room. Every single nurse/doctor/sonogram tech that comes in to check on us, run a test, start an IV, etc., I ask for an epidural. I even asked an intern who replied "you don't want me doing that, this is my first medschool rotation". I didn't care. At that point I'd of let the damn janitor insert the epidural catheter. The doctor finally comes in to check my cervix. The moment of truth. I swear I'm at like 8cm with the pain I'm feeling. She sticks her hand under my gown and up my lady parts and proudly exclaims, "yes, you are in labor. We are not sending you home. You're three centimeters dilated!"
THREE CENIMETERS.
That's it?
I want a second opinion.
Where the f?$k is my epidural.
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| The Best Daughter Since Day 1 |
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