well, it's high time you hear the tale. grandma and grandpa are minding the little one, so maybe i'll have enough time to get it all down.

thursday afternoon, the 14th, i started having contractions. they weren't real strong and didn't seem to be really going forward, so we just stuck it out that night. i managed to get a little sleep, not much. we went to the hospital very early friday morning to see where we were ... i was barely dialated and not going anywhere anytime soon. so the nurse told me to get out of there and walk around as much as i could to try and make some progress.

jeremy and i went all over town that day; i walked until i thought my feet were going to fall off. the contractions started to pick up a little -- enough that i was a bit embarrassed about trying to work through them in public. so we went home and did a bit more work, stopped by the hospital again that night ... and the news was bad ... i had made very little progress and was apparently in for many many more hours of the same.

well there was no way i could sleep that night as the contractions were really getting strong. at about 130am, we called kristen, our dear doula, and she came over to see us through to the end. the four of us (kristen, jeremy, magnolia and i) worked really really really hard until very early in the morning, probably around 500am. kristen thought i had progressed to the point where we needed to get the hospital very soon, so we made our way painfully to the hospital. the contractions were sweeping me away at this point. i did really well, but i was seriously at their mercy and couldn't really walk ot talk. we were all sure that this was it! that i was in transition and would be ready to start pushing anytime!

but the news was really really bad ... the nurse checks me and say, 'well, you're dilated to about a three' ... that's a three out of TEN, people! i was SO unbelievably discouraged, i cannot even tell you ... i burst into tears and threw up all over the place. at this point, kristen stepped in. she told me that i should get an epidural. now we were all totally committed to doing this thing naturally, but kristen is a fantastic doula, and she knew just what this family needed ... she knew that i had been awake for two days, having contractions and working as hard as i could possibly work ... and that i had hours and hours ahead of me and that i would have absolutely no energy when it came time to push. and just having her tell me it was okay ... it made everything better. and i mean it people, i was totally committed to having "natural" childbirth ... but someone was watching over me and little magnolia that day ... because if i hadn't gotten that epidural then ... things could have turned out very badly ...

they moved me to a birthing suite and got the drugs going. the doctor checked in on me and decided to start some pitocin to get things moving a bit faster since i wasn't feeling any pain anymore. (and i tell you, folks, after roughly 43 hours of that crap, i was BLISSED OUT at this point.) i was even able to rest a little bit while waiting for things to pick up. the doctor came back in a bit later to see if my water had broken yet, and just as she came in, it did. so she checks my dilation, and things are moving right along, i'm at about 5, and she's very encouraged.

...

then i notice that she is looking over my shoulder at the fetal monitor ... and that she has gotten very quiet and serious. she then quietly asks a nurse to get her an internal monitor ... now i took my childbirthing classes like a good pregnant woman, and i KNOW what it means to have an internal monitor ... it means that something is wrong.

she attaches the internal monitor and continues to stare over my shoulder. she has me roll onto my right side for a minute. then roll onto my left side for a minute. she's still staring at the monitor.

...

then she says, 'mom, we are going to get this kid out right now' and a team of doctors and nurses flood into my room.

...

some moments in our lives get blurry and fly past us so quickly ... this was more like a series of black and white snapshots, frozen in my memory for all time. i couldn't think of anything other than the distress of the tiny unborn baby inside me. jeremy and i locked eyes the entire time. kristen was putting scrubs on him, someone was putting an oxygen mask on me, adding some medicine to my epidural, prepping my stomach, unhooking my bed from the wall, running down the hall with it towards the operating room ... i'm fairly certain my heart didn't beat once that entire time. and from the time the doctor said those words to me ... to the time i heard magnolia's first cry, was exactly 13 minutes ...

it was all so unbelievable, so dramatic, and filled with such lucky coincidences. if i hadn't had the epidural, it would have taken longer to get me ready for surgery. they would have had to knock me out completely to do it. if the doctor hadn't been standing right the foot of my bed at the exact moment that magnolia went into distress ... if, if, if ...

and so every second that i look at her face i feel blessed. i feel that she was meant to be, against all the odds. and if it's possible, i love her more every second.