My birth story for Jessie

I HAVE to document this on the blog, as this is our family journal. I woke up Sunday morning at 4:30 having contractions, and started to time them. They were 10 minutes apart, and I was excited! I called Ryan at 6:00 in the morning and told him that maybe he should come down, but to take his time, take a shower. I told him I didn't want it to be "rush, rush" thing, and since the contractions were 10 minutes apart and didn't hurt, there was no hurry. (I have contractions for like a month, tons of Braxton Hicks...) He came down, and I was so excited not to go to church (I love church, but I hate my too tight skirt and didn't want to wear it again...). My mom took the kids to church and the contractions stopped. NOTHING. For four hours, nothing. I was so discouraged. I got on my mom's treadmill for two different sessions hoping that would do something. NOTHING. So when the kids got back from church we went to Ryan's parents house as per our Sunday routine. As soon as I walked in the door I started having contractions again. When they were five minutes apart and I couldn't talk or laugh through them I called the birth center. Funny conversation:
Me: "I have been having contractions five minutes apart for an hour and they just got a bit unmanageable."
Nurse: "Unmanageable? That's an interesting way to put it."
Me: "Well, I have to think about them now."
Nurse:"Is this your first one?"
Me: "No, it's number four."
Nurse: "Has your water broke or are you spotting?"
Me: "Nope. But with number two I walked in at 8 cm with none of that."
Nurse: "It sounds like you should come in then. We'll be waiting for you."

I go tell Ryan, Jocelyn and I get our picture taken to compare bellies (I HATE those! I look so bad!) and then we leave. My water breaks on the way, I joke with Ryan about how labor contractions are funny because it doesn't hurt unless you are having a contraction, and if they are five minutes apart, you get five full minutes of rest. And, that if I get to the hospital and I'm four cm dilated I'll be upset and I'll ask for pitocin. Five or ten minutes later we get to the hospital and pull in front. I step out of the van and find that I can't make it. I tell Ryan to go get a wheelchair. He comes back and says "There is no one in there!" I do a funny waddle-run to the doors (with wet pants- NICE!) and get in the elevator. One floor up and I kind of lose perspective on what happened. I know I was thinking I was going to have this baby in the elevator and how was I going to get my tennis shoes off and where is everybody? I tell Ryan to go get someone and he tells me to hold the elevator door. I somehow make it the two feet to the door and after about 20 seconds a nurse comes from the opposite direction with a wheelchair. They RUN me to the first open door where I jump on the bed and tell the nurse that the baby is falling out. She says no, she's not. (I still beg to differ, and my sister Kendra said "I hate those nurses. They don't know anything. As a side note, she had number two in the car, and the doctor missed number three and four.) The doctor came in and Jessie fell out. There was no holding of the legs back, or pushing your chin to your chest, or counting to ten. Just "Oh! There's the head!" and then she was born. (See- she did fall out.) We were stuck in our office room for four hours until we got put into a real room. By then it was too late for visitors, so we had a quiet evening. Ryan was so bored because the room we were in for the delivery didn't have a TV or anything. I still need to talk to Ryan to get his side of the story because I know that as soon as I got into that elevator, I lost a good part of my concentration on what was going on.