For the past week I have been having contractions that last a little while but go away after a couple hours. So when they started on Tuesday I really didn’t pay much attention to them. I was extremely tired all day so kept taking little naps, and all contractions would stop. Then about a hour or 2 after they would start back. They still were nowhere consistent. Then around 9:30 I decided to take a bath to ease some pain, not feeling contractions at this point, just pain. By the time I got out I decided to go get checked because something didn’t feel right. Still figured I was just having false labor though and that it would go away when I got there. I actually drove myself to the hospital since I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone with a long (hopefully not needed) hospital visit. As I started driving I started to realize contractions were 4-5 min apart and increasing in intensity. I made it to the hospital an hour away and of course they did the normal things. I was not dilating, not leaking fluids and was only having what they call “uterine irritability” so not real contractions. They decided to keep me a little longer though to find out why I was in so much pain, which was only getting worse. They gave me some IV pain medicine to help but ended up just knocking me out until the pain would start again. Obviously this wasn’t helping at all so decided to check me again, which is when they found out I was at a 2. So whatever was going on was at least doing something. That is when they decided to admit me and start my epidural.  That was around 3 in the morning and when I finally told everyone what was going on. Unfortunately J was sick and had taken NyQuil to help get over it, since again, we thought it was false labor. He was in no shape to make the long drive home. And then Jamie responded to my text and decided to come up to be with me. Which I’m very glad she did. 

The doctor came in around 7:30 in the morning to take out my cerclage and break my water. Still was only at a 3-4. So we just waited. 2 hours later was only at a 6. So more waiting. Finally got to an 8 but they noticed her heart rate was dropping with contractions. Apparently it had been happening for awhile but was becoming more prominent with each one. So they let me push a few times to see if I could get to a 10, which we did. Got everything set up, J on FaceTime and we were good to go. After about 10 minutes of pushing she arrived. Honestly it was hard not having J there but my sister was definitely the next best thing. She got to be there with me to welcome her new niece into the world the day after her birthday and even cut her cord. I guess it was pretty perfect considering dad was named after grandpa and Jamie was named after dad and now Penelope gets to carry on the name as well.