Baby girl. . .

We were sitting on the couch a couple nights ago and my wife was having contractions. That wasn't anything new, she's been having a steady stream of Braxton Hicks contractions for weeks. She's also been dilated go 3 cm for several weeks. So we take all contractions seriously.

These were different, these were starting to get uncomfortable for her and seemed to be a little more regular than the others.

So we loaded up the car, dropped off our sick preschooler at his grandparents, and went to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital and we escorted to a maternity triage room. My wife was hooked up to the monitors, we got started asking questions, and the contractions stopped. Not stopped so much, but changed to 20 minutes apart. This was first pointed out by the on-call OBGYN who told us he had just sent home 6 women that night we were not in labor.

Then he examined her. . . "oh, you're a keeper," he said. Not many contractions but she was in labor.

So we were landed in a delivery room and moved through the process: IV, blood draw, questions, monitoring, and suddenly regular contractions. . . painful ones. Another examination showed my wife was at 6 cm and it's about 1 a.m., if she's going to get an epideral now is the time. So she elected to have it. Nothing is really felt by my wife from this point on.

And then we (or mainly I) slept—off and on—until 6 a.m. when it's announced that it's time to call the doctor.

The doctor arrives at 6:50 a.m. prepares everything she might need to work and at 6:58 my wife is informed to push during the current contraction (which she can't feel). She pushed 3 times and the head is half way out. It's decided that she'll stop and push again on the next contraction. . .

Only our daughter doesn't want to wait that long. So she wiggles a little and pulls herself out at 7:01 a.m.

And just like that our newest family member is here. Now the real hard part starts.