It all happened so fast...

**Yes this is the labor story for those of you who don't want to read :)**

Tuesday morning I woke up once again disappointed that Madelyn didn't decide to join us during the night. Anna and I went for a walk with our friends and then we had lunch with my husband and a friend - nothing too out of the ordinary. Towards the end of lunch I started having a few pains which lasted for the next two hours. I called the nurse at my doctor's office to report the pains, but since they were not getting more intense and frequent like a contraction I was told there was nothing they could do and to drink more water. I drank a glass of water. Around 2:45 p.m. I felt a pain that came on more like a wave which reminded me of the contractions I had with Anna. Not being 100% sure it was an actual contraction I continued to do a few things around the house while glancing at the clock to see how often the pains were occurring. At this point they were about every 5-6 minutes. After I'd had the pains for a good 15 minutes I let my husband know so that we could better time them. Sure enough, the pains continued and increased in intensity. At 3:45 we called my friend Suzanne to come get Anna and I called the doctor's office who gave me the green light to head to the hospital. At this point I was still not completely convinced I was in labor - could it be in my head? Was I so ready to have the baby that I was making up contractions?

Being close to rush hour it took us 40 minutes to get from our house to Rex Hospital - which included a 5 minute stop at the Dunkin' Donuts :). The delivery floor seemed relatively quiet and we were quickly met by a wonderful nurse named Crystal. She got our paperwork done and checked me to see if I was a "keeper". Sure enough, I was 5 centimeters along and got to stay. My contractions quickly progressed and I was soon in PAIN. The nurse pushed lots of fluids into me and by 6:15 p.m. I had an epidural. I'm not sure if it was from the epidural or the pain but my blood pressure started dropping and so they gave me some ephinefrin to get me back to normal. At 6:30 the nurse checked me and I was at 9 centimeters and she started prepping everything for delivery - what!?! already!?! The doctor came in to break my water and at 7:10 they had me pushing. At 7:28 p.m. baby Madelyn was here!