So I’m going to start this by saying that with my first pregnancy my water had broken on its own and I was not getting contractions and needed to be put on pitocin 6 hours later to get labor going and that labor was about 19 hours and I pushed for 15 min. The weeks leading up to baby #2 I was getting a lot of Braxton Hicks especially at night. Some nights I would get them every 5-7 min for about an hour and then they would go away. Around 11pm on 7/20 (day before my due date) I started getting what I thought were Braxton Hicks. I got maybe 3 contractions in that hour. Once midnight hit I started to get them at what felt like 5 min apart. I started to time them and they were but only lasting 30 seconds. I posted on my delivery month group asking about contractions and when to go in bc my doc had never told me. She had only mentioned water breaking. Everyone they responded to my question told me to follow the 5-1-1 rule so I decided to wait it out and see if my contractions would last longer. I decided to take a shower and run a load of laundry just in case I did end up going into delivery that night. Well over the next 30 min my contractions went from 5 min apart and 30 seconds to 2-3 min apart and 45 seconds and they were becoming so painful I would have to brace myself and try to breathe. I woke up my husband at 12:45 and told him I think we need to get to the hospital. Luckily my parents were staying with us to watch my daughter. So I told him to get dressed and that I was going to wake up my mother to let her know. When I went to look for my husband not even 2 min later I heard him in the shower. The damn shower! Here I am in pain and needing to get to the hospital and he decided to take a shower. I started banging on the door telling him he needed to get out and hurry up. Ladies, the man was in there for the longest 10 min and came out looking all confused and trying to figure out what the rush was 🙄 once he sees me get a contraction he realizes we need to get to the hospital ASAP. My father had woken up with all the commotion and finds me leaning over the counter trying to breathe and asks me if I’m in pain. I just looked at him like really?!?! We start walking out the house and to the car and my dad decides to drive us so we don’t have to worry about the car. I’m getting contractions and the man is trying to rush me and as soon as I get to the car I get such a painful contraction I had to lean onto the car to hold myself up. My dad turns and tells me to stop wasting time and tries to get me to get into the car. It took all my strength not to scream. He drives like a maniac and we get to the hospital by 1:45. As soon as we get up to l&d I immediately start asking for an epidural. I’m in so much pain and it’s happening so much faster and stronger than I expected. With my first I didn’t even make a peep during the 19 hours and didn’t ask for an epidural until the last 3 hours. Here I am surprising even myself with how this is going. I started throwing up in triage while they were taking my vitals. I’m in so much pain I’m starting to moan. I was so embarrassed but I couldn’t control it. I kept asking for an epidural but they kept telling me there’s a whole process before they can do it. They came in to check me and I was 6 cm dilated (I was at 1cm the day before at my appt) they got me into a delivery room and I’m screaming from the pain at this point. I was curled onto my side in a ball screaming into the pillow. The intensity was too much to handle. I think it’s because the last time it was slow progressing and the pain was gradually increasing that I was able to tolerate it better, this time it hit me out of nowhere and intensified so quickly. My savior the anesthesiologist finally did the epidural after me being there over an hour, I almost told him I wanted to marry him that’s how amazing I was feeling. My doc came in and told me that they were going to come back in a bit to insert the catheter and that they were going to give me a break and let me rest for about an hour and that they would check me again at that point. That’s when I realized these people didn’t understand what was going on and thought I was being dramatic and that’s why it took so long to get the epidural. When she came back into the room 2 min later with her student doc I asked them to check me bc I was feeling pressure. She kept saying I had plenty of time still and that I should just lay back and relax. I insisted that she check me so she rolled her eyes and had the student do it and lo and behold I was at 10 cm. The doc was surprised and checked me herself and had me do a test push and told me the baby would come out with like 2 pushes. She immediately called the nurse to get the room ready and to get the pediatrician for the baby. My poor husband had stepped out of the room to call his parents and didn’t know what was going on. As they were getting the delivery stuff ready I grabbed the nurse and told her I was feeling a lot of pressure even with the epidural and they checked me again and could see the head so they scrambled to get me into position since I was numb. It was chaos in there bc they weren’t expecting me to progress so quickly. I couldn’t feel any contractions so the nurses were watching the monitor and pressing on my uterus to tell me when I was having one to push. I pushed for the first contraction and then stopped to wait for the second. When I looked at the student doc between my legs I could see she was moving her hand around and smiling. I asked if she could see the head and she said yup and the baby has a lot of hair and she was playing with it lol. Baby came out on the next push. 3 min in total. They put her right on me and she looked exactly like my other daughter but with so much hair. My husband didn’t make it back to the room in time so I texted him from my Apple Watch to let him know. He ran back quick and got to hold the baby and stayed with her while they stitched me up. They told me I had one of the fastest deliveries they had seen in a while and that if they had checked me before the epidural they would have skipped it and had me push then. Thank god was able to get it. I wasn’t in pain and was able to focus on pushing more effectively. They joked and told me that the next one will be quicker than this one. I told them if it’s any quicker than this I should just move into the hospital at 36 weeks lol. She was born at 3:33am weighing 7lbs 1oz and 20 inches long on 7/21 and is so pretty and perfect and has been the best baby. I posted my birth story to let other ladies know that if they feel like labor is starting or they aren’t sure that it’s better to go in and get checked bc if I had stuck around to wait until they got to 1 min long and lasting an hour I most likely would not have been able to get to the hospital. Trust your instincts!