He's Here!!!

Well, Connor finally decided to make an appearance and we didn't need an induction after all!
We had the Induction scheduled for Friday evening but I went into labor on my own sometime Thursday. I can't honestly say when it all started. Pretty much all day I thought I was just having bowel trouble. I was crampy and gassy and my lower back was really uncomfortable. Sometime around 6pm I took a shower and then laid on the bed and called Tom, looking for some sort of advice. It wasn't really until after 9pm that I noticed the cramps were fairly regular. I've had so many "Is this it's!?!" that I didn't get to excited. I just waited a while to see what would happen.
Of course Tom was supposed to be on call on Friday, but switched it to Thursday so he could be with me for the induction. So just as I'm getting ready for bed around 1am, he gets a page and has to go back to the hospital and he isn't sure if he's coming home. He might just stay there and work through his shift the next day. He wanted to know why I was laughing while I was brushing my teeth. I thought it was pretty funny that I was pretty sure I was finally in labor and he had to leave. He just smiled and looked sceptical, gave me a kiss and told me to call if I needed him. Off he goes.
So I laid down and the contractions were pretty regular and uncomfortable but I tried to get some sleep. I only slept for an hour and a half before I couldn't really sleep through them anymore. I would doze in between and then wake up and check the clock when they came. Sometime around 3am I called Tom and told him they were pretty frequent and regular and he of course asked me to start timing them. Then I called my mom and told her that I didn't think she and Lisa should wait until 10am to start the 6+ hour trip. I timed the contractions for about 45 minutes to make sure I had an average for Tom and then called him back to let him know they 3.5-4.5 minutes apart. He told me he would have to call me back when he figured out if he was scrubbing on the morning case!?! So I laid in bed a bit longer and then around 6am I got up and let the dogs out and sat on my exercise ball, which oddly, started slowing things down.
Tom didn't scrub in, he was told to go home and home he came. I walked around, took a shower, packed (I had most everything ready to go in the suitcase) and finished up a few chores around the house. Since I had been scheduled for induction I had been cleaning for the last few days anyway. Around 10am I had Tom call and ask if I should head in. They were about every 2.5-3.5 minutes by then and riding in the car made them every 2 minutes apart. They nice thing was they were really evenly spaced, so I could really rest and then look at the watch and know to relax and be ready for the next one before it started.
When we got to the hospital, Tom unloaded me in the lobby and went to park. Of course I got numerous offers to be taken to L&D and would I like a wheelchair (I don't really think I looked as though I was going to drop him in the lobby, I was very calm) but I waited for Tom. When we were on our way to L&D and I got a contraction, I just stopped and squatted and breathed through it and we moved on. I had several contractions at the nurses station waiting for my bed. Then they got me a room and hooked me up to the monitors and checked me. 7CM! YEAH! I WAS SO PROUD! They hooked up my antibiotics and left me to do my thing. At this point I was still proclaiming my broken arm and the time I had Pleurisy to be more painful. I walked, I squatted, I breathed. Two hours later I was 8.5cm. A couple hours later I was 9+CM but my water was still intact and Mom, Lisa & Amanda had just gotten their. So they broke my water.
Now the pain was bad. The minute they broke my water I began to have excruciating back labor, that was continuous. There were no short rests and there was no getting any position that offered any relief, and my labor stalled. They checked me over and over and it was always the same. A couple hours later (after proclaiming I was dying and being told by the attending that "they hadn't lost anyone all week" to which I told him I would have laughed if I wasn't so sure I was dying) I finally asked for the epidural. Then the anesthesiologist disappeared. I swear she had to go make a fresh batch. Then she wouldn't do it until I signed a paper. I was so drained I was begging Tom to sign it.
Once I had the epidural they plugged in the pitocin. AND NOTHING HAPPENED. We waited that way for hours. We had to play with the epidural because my left side wasn't numb and then we pushed the button to much and my right side got so numb I couldn't move my leg. Finally around 11pm I reached down felt the head and told the nurse that I wanted to get this show on the road.
There was pushing and pulling and mineral oil and lots of "stop moving the mirror!" At 11:54 I looked at the clock and decided it was up to me if Connor was going to be born on the 29th or the 30th. So I pushed for all I was worth. But it was all worth it when I looked down and saw his head and the moment I watched Connor slide from my body. With Tom gowned up to help catch him and my sister holding my hand and supporting my back, my mom taking pictures and Amanda watching wide eyed from the corner Connor made his way into the world at 11:56pm. I got to cut the cord and everybody got to hold him and then because he was 10lbs they insisted he go to the nursery for 4 hours to have his blood sugar monitored. But he was/is just fantastic! We stayed in the hospital Saturday and then headed home about 2pm on Sunday.