I was one day shy of a week overdue when my contractions picked up to a regular pattern. They were pretty painful, but nothing I couldn't breath through. We called the midwife around 4am, and she suggested that we wait until they were three minutes apart. So we did this. Around 7 am they were around 3-4 minutes apart, so we went in. The midwife checked and found that I was only 2cm dilated. She gave me the option to go home or to stay, but she kind of condescendingly encouraged me to go home so I figured this would be best. She said "honey, you won't be smiling and happy when it's the real thing"...

When we got home around 12, I went in the bedroom extremely frustrated because my contractions seemed to have slowed down a lot!! I took a nap and woke up around 4pm. When I went to use the bathroom, my pee didn't stop coming out. I thought to myself for a second, WOW! I haven't been able to hold that much in for a LONG time. Then I thought wait...? Could it be? It was my water! I felt a lot better now!

I was told to wait until the contractions picked up again, so I did. They picked up much faster this time and they were 4 minutes apart by 8, so we went in. She checked me and said that I was still 3cm. She noticed that my contractions were pretty close and suggested that I get some IV fluids because my dehydration was causing me to have close contractions that weren't really doing anything except hurting... I did this and the contractions slowed down a little.

I was a little nervous because I hadn't gotten much sleep and I knew at this point that I was in for a longgg night. They offered me some sort of mild sleeping aid and muscle relaxer so I could sleep. It wasn't any of the usual options. I decided to take it. I was in a daze throughout the night, but managed to sleep through contractions. They hurt, but I was still living.

In the morning, I was checked and to all of our surpise, I was dilated to 7!! I decided to get up and walk around and was up and down all day. In between contractions, I was able to joke around and laugh with my family. At one point, I had a posy following me around the birthing center. (We both have very big families who were waiting in the waiting room all day)

After laboring throughout the day, around 4pm, she checked again and found that I was around 8cm. She suggested that I take a very small amount of pitocin to try to get things moving. My original plan was to go without, but I figured because I was so close, it would just give me a little jump start and it did ! I walked around more. The contractions became stronger and more frequent, but I was still walking the halls and talking to everyone in between contractions. The midwife commented that I was so calm for being so dilated. My mom also commented that she was shocked at how I was acting. Don't get me wrong, they hurt, but I could walk slowly holding on to something.

Around 6:15, she checked again and asked me to get into my birthing position. She said she wanted to try something because there was just a little bit of cervix left. I pushed it out and without informing me that it was time, we just went right into it. The pushing was the absolute worst. I pushed for an hour and a half and felt delirious through most of it. I was saying all types of crazy stuff about how they lie on the TV and that it was soooo hard. It was. But my little Madelyn finally squeezed her way through at 7:44 pm on 1/29/17 and the greatest relief I had ever experienced came over me. She is absolutely perfect.

Before the midwife left, she came back in and congratulated me. She said it has been quite sometime since I've seen someone so calm in labor. It made me feel good. ;)