I had preterm contractions from 33 weeks on which put me in the hospital twice for monitoring. One time they gave me procardia for the contractions and the other time they gave me terbutaline, both of which helped for a short time but didn't stop the contractions from coming back. I anxiously timed any mild contractions hoping it was time, but I soon gave that up as nothing was happening. 

On 9/28 my water broke at 5:40pm while my hubby and I were watching TV. I heard the pop, it sounded like a stomach growl with a pop sound. I laughed and asked hubby if he heard that and as I was describing it, I started leaking and knew immediately it was my water so I flew off the couch yelling profanities! My hubby jumped up as well asking if my water broke then ran around the house gathering last minute items we needed. I called labor and delivery to tell them I was coming then went to clean up and get fresh clothes on (ridiculous because they would also soon be dirty as well)! 

When I arrived at L&D, I was dilated to 2cm at 6:15pm. I proceeded to walk around the hospital unit mostly out of boredom. I wasn't having strong contractions at the time, just very mild ones. No pain meds were needed at this point. Progressively they became worse but I was still able to walk and talk through them. At 11:30pm I was checked and was dilated to 5cm! At that time they started IV fluids so I could receive an epidural. The pain was bearable so I wondered if I should wait for the epidural but decided I didn't want to miss the window of opportunity. The epidural placement (at 2am) was uncomfortable but not intolerable. The medicine made me super sleepy so I slept most of the night with intermittent checks by the nurse. My contractions slowed overnight so they started pitocin to amp them up. By 4am I was 6cm, by 6am I was 7cm. The new nurse came on at 7am and said I was just shy of 10cm and to just relax until I felt like I needed to push. By 9:40 I needed to push so we started. The doctor arrived about 11am and was there to help coach me through pushing. About 11:15 my epidural started to fail on one side, I told the nurse as the pain started creeping on. Within 3 contractions I felt everything and was in the most excruciating pain. The doc rubbed my back, my hubby was trying to talk me through the contractions but it wasn't working. Finally the anesthesiologist came in, fixed the epidural line and gave me a large dose of medication. Within 15 minutes I was sleeping and only waking with contractions to push. After 3 hours of pushing, including 1 hour of no epidural, my baby boy was born on 9/29 at 7lbs 8oz. I had a small episiotomy cut by the doctor (the recovery process is not nearly as bad as I had expected). Overall the labor was 19 hours and very tolerable (except the failing epidural). One day I'll do it all over again for another precious baby!