It's Time!

Last night, in the wee hours of the a.m., my best buddy, Mandy, called me to tell me that she was in labor and admitted to the hospital. Of course, at around 8:00 yesterday evening, she told me that she was having contractions that were 23 minutes apart that changed to 14 minutes apart over the span of two hours. She was getting excited, but then the contractions fizzled back to 23 minutes apart until 11:30 p.m. It was then that they became 7 minutes apart, she decided it was best to get herself into the hospital for the big birthing process. And got herself to the hospital, she did. Literally. She actually thought that it was an inconvenience to everyone that she was in potential labor and told her hubby, Sean, that he should just keep on sleeping and that she would call him if they admitted her. Of course, this was at 3:30 in the morning when she told me about this. Oooh, I could have skinned her alive! So every seven minutes during the 45 minute drive to the hospital, she had a lovely contraction. They weren't the 'I can't walk and talk' kind yet, so she said it wasn't that bad. Inconvenience...hmpf! Goofy girl. If I hadn't had two sleeping children and a husband that was working two hours later, I would have driven up there and kicked her butt for doing that. But that is Mandy for ya. So I talked with her for about an hour and then tried to get some sleep. I have anxiety/panic disorder so once I knew that she was in there, sleep was far from my mind. I had got about two hours of compiled sleep when she just called me and told me that after 14 hours of labor, she got a lovely epidural on the rocks. They wanted to break her water, so the contractions were about to kick into high gear. Smart move too. Those early contractions are bearable, but they can wear you pretty thin for the long haul. Alex was a 30 hour labor and I didn't sleep during the entire thing. I had an iffy epidural that didn't really work as good as they are supposed to. Once they broke my water the epidural stopped working and it hurt pretty bad still. So here I sit, blogging about my upcoming niece's arrival into the world. She just called and told me about the epidural, water breaking, and that she is a stretchy 6 cm dilated. So until further notice, I told her to get some sleep (she hasn't slept all night, naturally). I'm banking on two hours from now when I will hear the phone ring with an adorable baby crying in the background. Or at the very least, a phone call from Sean saying that they are about to start pushing. I'm pumped here, folks! I'm gonna be an aunt again! Woo-hoo!

To be continued...