Our baby girl had been in the same frank breech position, in the upper right quadrant of my belly for three months. Her movements had slowed down around 30 weeks, and I was going into triage 3-5 times a week because he kick counts weren't being met. Every time we went to the hospital everything looked great, and we'd go home knowing she was just a chill little girl. The doctor decided they wanted to do a external cephalic version on October 2nd at 37 weeks. 

So at 36+4, I had a regular visit with my ob, mentioned some minor cramping and they said it's normal. That if u saw blood or had fluid I should call. That night, I woke up at midnight with cramps. They felt like menstural cramps, but a little more painful, just enough to wake me up every hour between midnight and five am. At 5 am, I decided since I didn't have an fluid or blood everything was fine and I'd just go to work. I had the next day off for doctors appointments, and I really didn't want to waste any leave time if I didn't have a legitimate reason. So I went to work, and did my usual ten hour work day. It was business as usual. Around 8 am the cramps were annoying enough that I decided to call the doctor to see f I could take Tylenol to ease my discomfort. I couldn't get anyone in the line (as usual) and had to leave a message. Mind you, I work in a prison, so don't have access to my cell phone at work. The doctors office knows this, and they know they're supposed to call me back in my office line and cell phone. I didn't hear anything, so I just put a heating pad on my belly and went on with my day. When i left work that afternoon, I had four messages from the obs office saying I should go to the hospital to get check out. 

I called my husband, who asked if he should leave work early. I told him that I honestly thought they'd just want to monitor the baby before I could take Tylenol, that I would run to get chick-fil-a, and meet him at the house in a couple hours. Well, by 5:30 we were both at home; I was doubled over bc of some pesky lower back spasms and what I thought were Braxton hicks (I'd been having those for weeks). What my husband pointed out was that I was having about 8 of those contractions a minute, and I hadn't eaten all my food. After my French fries I'd given up bc the pain was distracting me. We got to the hospital at 6 and the nurse did cervical check. She told me the baby had flipped and I was 4 cm dilated and that was probably why I was cramping. That I shouldn't eat the rest of my food bc they didn't know if the baby was coming and if on the off chance I had to have a c section food was a bad idea. At 7 the doctor came in, did a check, and used the ultrasound machine. He looked at the nurse, and said "the baby's head is still up here, and she's got her butt moving down... she's 6cm now" 

They  tried to give me two bags of fluids to slow the contractions down. No luck. Then the wanted to give me drugs to stop the contractions, and told me that the meds might not even stop the contractions, and actually could make labor longer if they didn't stop the contractions all together. At this point, the contractions are two minutes apart, still annoying. I just want to say that if I hadn't been told I was in labor, I'd have never guessed it. The doctor then told me I was probably in labor most of the day (great). I refused the meds. By 8pm the doctor came back did another check, looked at me and said the baby is wedged into the birth canal and we need to do an emergency c section now. I'm totally confused. I still didn't think I was really in labor... I hadn't thought this baby was coming today. I just worked a ten hour day. All i wanted was the okay to take some Tylenol!

By 9 I had signed all the paperwork and we were being taken into the operating room. They gave me the spinal. Right before they started they checked to make sure I was numb. Guess what? There was a 1inch patch that wouldn't go numb!!! The anesthesiologist said she would have to put me under general anesthesia- I asked her if there was an alternative. She said she could try a whole bunch of lidocaine... it finally worked and they went ahead with the c section. At 9:39 Out sweet girl, Nazaneen, made her appearance. 

She's just under six pounds. She didn't have to go to the NICU. They did keep us in the hospital for four days to monitor her weight and make sure she was breathing ok. 

I guess at the end of the day, I knew my body was kinda oblivious to pain. I was really hoping I'd know labor from false labor. My coworkers were all surprised to hear I'd given birth since I'd worked my full work day and hadn't made a peep. Heck, I'm surprised! 

What a great surprise though! I'm head over heels in love with our little girl, and so very grateful she made it into the world safe and healthy.