5 days later...

5 days after my last post Emily was born.

Three days after my post I went into labor.

Christmas Day I woke up early full of energy.  I cleaned, organized, made coffee, redid anything in the baby's room that wasn't perfectly aligned, and then I started having contractions.  Five minutes apart and slowly building in strength.  I assumed it was a false alarm (I'd had one 2 days before), so I took a photo of myself (just in case) and painted my toenails (because I wanted pretty toes for my labor).  I impressed myself with my toenail painting! It took some acrobatics but I did it.

David woke up from a nap and found me in the bathroom painting.  He asked why I was painting my toenails when it was obviously difficult, I told him I was having contractions and then asked what was for dinner.  (I now look back and see that I was nesting)

While David cooked dinner I called the doctor who told me to drink a lot of water, lay down, wait an hour and call her back.  The contractions continued slowly getting stronger, so we inhaled dinner and headed to the hospital.  David had made a cake for Christmas, but it was left on the counter.  Should have brought the thing with us, but who knew?

We'd had our stuff mostly packed and we assumed that this was another false alarm so for the VERY FIRST TIME we did not bring it all with us.  Hindsight is 20/20.

They decided it might be labor but I was only 1cm dialated.  So we waited.  And I drank a lot more water again.  This was at 830 or so.
I was 2-3 cm by midnight and the snow started falling as my contractions strengthened.

With our complications we knew I'd go into labor between 35 and 37 weeks (I was 36w4d- 3 days from full term), and that was true.  But I needed a NICU and our local hospital (with my OB) didn't have that.

We've been working with another hospital three hours away for the last few months and it was decided that it was time to go there at midnight.  But the ambulance didn't make it to the hospital for transport until 4 am. Which gave David plenty of time to go home and get our stuff, get gas, and make it back to me.

So with David following in our car, I was loaded into an ambulance.  We said fairwell to my OB and headed to the big hospital.  We didnt make it.  Instead we made it halfway and had to turn off for a closer hospital with a NICU.  This one was about 90 minutes away on a normal day.  In 6 inches of snow, with more falling each second and no visibility we took over three hours to make the trip.

At this point it's 7 am.  I'm at the WRONG hospital from what we planned and the doctor we need is on vacation (I kid you not) but is "in town and can come in if needed."  BUT the stupid nurses and doctors see that I am 3 days from full term and decide not to help me along.  In fact, they wanted to give me drugs to stop the contractions.  I was SO DONE with that pregnancy that I told my husband, "do not even let them come into this room with drugs to stop this labor."

By that afternoon I'd exhausted every drug they could give me for the pain- Except an epidural.  Because that's for people who are really in labor.  Idiots.  I slowly dialated more and more, and my contractions got worse and worse.  At one point I was so exhausted and they were so bad that I fell asleep between each one and woke up to hold David's hand and tell him what I dreamed in the 2 minutes I was out- it was half sleep half hallucination.

Finally I asked for drugs to stop the contractions- anything to end the pain.  Those failed, at midnight maybe? I'm not sure, it's all a big blur for me.  So they decided it was real (how nice of them), they gave me an epidural, accidentally broke my water while checking my cervix and I was on my way.

Emily Katherine was born at 4 lb 14 oz at 3 pm on December 27 after 47 hours of contractions.

It was insane.
She is here, she is healthy, and my baby weight is mostly gone already.

Emily will be one month old in two days.  What a crazy month it's been.