Her birth story

I know that not everyone is interested in birth stories, but I wanted to get it written down before I forgot the details. Baby girl is now 9 days old (!!) and we're finally settling in to a bit of a routine. Her bilirubin levels had gone back up to a 20 and she was admitted to the hospital overnight last Friday. We spent 24 hours there and then got to bring her home again. On Tuesday she had her last heel stick and is now home for good.

Here's the story of her birth, sorry for the formatting.

My water broke at work just before 2pm on Tuesday, August 31st. I had just been home for lunch with no signs that I should expect to have a baby that day. I had my first contraction a few
minutes after 2 and texted my back up friend to come get me at 2:09. I called Mike, who was about 45 minutes away from town. I told work I was leaving and pretty much left immediately. Brianna picked
me up at work, and I got to the hospital at 2:50. By the time we got there I was contracting pretty hard, but still maybe 3 minutes apart. Got checked in and back to the room, skipping
labor triage.  Immediately got changed and into bed, the nurse checked me and I was already at a 7. She said I wasn't going to have time to get an epidural and that I
shouldn't freak out but that things were likely to get really hectic
around there. Contractions got closer and closer together, with very little rest in between. Just minutes
later I was at a 9. She said I could have an iv drug if I wanted it
and I did, but in the end it didn't matter.

My dr got there about 3:30 and I was already wanting to push. Brianna
called Mike at 3:36 to ask where he was- in the parking lot! She told him
to hurry. (I have very little memory of any of this part. Brianna was a total rock star answering my phone and returning texts and all that.) He ran in after pushing started. I really freaked out a bit,
thought I wouldn't be able to do it, and instead of finding some kind
of wild strength like you read about just felt crazy and wild. In the
end it was maybe 10 minutes of pushing (uh, I think?), but I didn't find that "place" of calm and strength and all that, it just hurt like hell. She was born at 3:47, less than an hour after getting to the hospital and no more than two hours after it all started. Mike made it in the room by 6 minutes. It was crazy.

The Pirate's labor was about 12 hours long, induced after my water broke but contractions didn't happen.
The Bug's labor was about 5.5 hours long, following the same pattern as the Girl's- water broke, immediate contractions- but not quite so fast and hard, and I got to have an epidural.
Baby Girl- 2 hours start to finish, no epidural, fairly pointless iv drug (made me briefly loopy, but did not give any pain relief.)
If I needed another reason not to have a fourth child, it would be because I don't want to have a baby in the car! I'm really glad that I wasn't any farther from the hospital and that someone was able to take me in right away. I'd never have been able to drive myself and if I'd waited for Mike I'd never have made it in time.

Anyone else have experience with a super fast birth?  While I expected it to be quick, I really never considered the lack of drugs. I know that some people choose to go drug free, but that is so not for me, at least not on purpose!


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