Oh yeah, I made a people

Warning: this is not going to be particularly well-written. I am running on a caffeine high right now and am trying to pound this out before baby girl wakes up and wants to snack on me again.

Y'all, I totally had a baby. Woo! Much like the rest of my pregnancy, the birth was actually really straightforward and complication-free.

In case nobody's told you, going past your due date SUCKS. The last part of pregnancy is so uncomfortable and awkward and hot and crappy that when August 29th came and went with nary a contraction I was about ready to burn something down. I would go grocery shopping and people would literally stop me in the aisles and ask when I was due. One cashier told me she'd never seen a belly so completely round, and then when she found out I was overdue she acted like I would literally drop to the floor in front of her and pop the baby out at any second. "Do you need help out to your car???? ARE YOU SURE???? I CAN GET SOMEONE TO HELP YOU!!!!!!!" Jesus, lady.

Anu and I went to Milto's for dinner on Sunday night (the greek place right by campus for all you UT alumns) and I started to have some painless, but definitely significant, contractions that were coming about 7-10 minutes apart. I didn't actually tell Anu about them until we were back at home, though, because I suspected they were just a part of early labor and didn't think it was worth getting him worked up about. Because my instincts are awesome and I am always right, this turned out to be the right call. I took a shower when we got home and they pretty much disappeared. Still, it was the first time I had experienced regularly spaced contractions, so I knew we weren't far from D-day.

Sure enough, at 4 AM I was woken up by some definitely NOT painless contractions coming about 5-7 minutes apart. Since hot water is the best thing in the entire world ever, I hopped in the shower for a good 45 minutes to help me work through them as painlessly as possible. I was aiming for a med-free birth, so I knew I had to labor at home for as long as possible before going to the hospital so I could avoid interventions based on artificial timetables. After my shower I went out to the living room and watched "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" on Netflix until about 8 AM. Good documentary, actually, I recommend it.

ANYWAY. At that point I waddled back to the room to wake Anu up and ask him to sit with me because the contractions were no more than 5 minutes apart and getting harder to just ride out. Let me tell you something, world, contractions hurt. They hurt in a way that I can't even describe because you will never feel anything similar to it in any other situation. They are NOT the worst pain you could ever feel or anything like that, it's just that there's really no way to prepare for them if you've never felt them before because they are so significantly different from anything you've ever felt before. I called the doula collective we'd hired to give them the heads up that I was definitely in active labor. The doula on call (Tif) talked me through a couple of contractions and told me to call her again as soon as I wanted her to come over.

I labored on my own for another 3-4 hours, and we called Tif to the house when my contractions were down to 3 minutes apart. She was exactly what I needed, because she knew that it was time to forget comfort and just try to get the contractions REALLY going. Trust me, that was NOT something I would have done on my own. I really needed someone to kind of kick my ass and make me get with the program. I felt nauseated every time a contraction came, but it wasn't until Tif made me do some lunges that I actually had to run for the restroom and get my puke on. That sounds like it's a bad thing, but the thing about labor is that it only stops when the baby's out, so trying to avoid the pain by avoiding contractions is a stupid idea. I bounced on the yoga ball (owww), lunged some more (owwwwwwwww), and walked around the house (OWWWWW) until we were at 2-2.5 minutes apart and I called the hospital to let them know I was on my way in.

The ride over SUCKED. Laboring in a car where you can't move is just the worst. I had to go super-zen and live entirely in my head for the entire 20 minute ride from hell. Anu probably thought things were going great because I wasn't making any noise at all, but that was just because I knew if I made even the slightest noise I would probably end up going batshit crazy and kicking windows out or something.

We got to the hospital and got checked in fairly quickly. I had them take me up in a wheel chair because I couldn't take more than 5 steps without having a hardcore contraction. They took me to the triage room to monitor me for 20 minutes (standard procedure to make sure you're really in active labor before they admit you) and check my parts out. Turns out I was 9 cm dilated 100% effaced and pretty much completely ready to go. Unfortunately for my sense of badassery, I was DONE dealing with contractions. The pain was beyond insane and the thought of pushing the baby out without pain meds made me want to freak out. Tif and the nurse reminded me about 20 times that I had wanted to go natural, but I was beyond caring that point and told them very pointedly (and with murder in my eyes) that I wanted an epidural NOW and that hippie nonsense was not a priority to me.

I know, I know. I gave up at 9cm. The thing is, I honestly don't regret it. The epidural was GD magical and it made the rest of the experience pretty amazing. I was able to talk and relax for the last 30 minutes of labor and pushed painlessly for an hour and a half until baby girl was born at 8:29 pm. Since I wasn't in pain, I was able to be 100% in the moment and happy when she came into the world and they put her immediately on my chest.

I was so, so thrilled to find out she was a girl. I would have loved this baby no matter what the sex, but I'd been secretly picturing a girl since the start of the pregnancy and I love the fact that I have a daughter. She spent her first 5 minutes letting us know that birth was NOT FUN and she had a HEADACHE now and that she'd REALLY RATHER NOT do that again. I agreed with her fully. We'll see in a few years, but at this point I think we're one and done. I don't think I want to do pregnancy and labor again.

I had Anu wait until it was time to push before he called our parents to let them know to come up to Austin. I didn't want the pressure of knowing people were waiting in the lobby while I labored, and the timing we chose ended up being perfect, though it did throw them for a loop. Apparently they brought lots of books/laptops/etc to occupy themselves while they waited, and then 10 minutes after they got there Anu went out to ask them if they were ready to meet the baby, haha. Everyone got to hold her and pet her awesomely crazy head of hair. :-)

OK, more later about life since birth. I feel like kiddo's about to wake up any minute now. We're not putting pictures online, FYI, but if we're close and I haven't sent you any just email me and I'll get you some straight away.

-me