the labor and delivery of a little oak sapling

As most of you know by now, Miss Marian Saranne Chesney-House has made her appearance in the world!
When last we left you, I was pretty despondent over the lack of dilation after a full night of contractions. After an afternoon of napping that was mostly contraction-free, the contractions started up again that evening. I was not at all graceful about it -- cursing in my head for the entire night as they came, painful but irregular, allowing me to sleep for at most 10 minutes at a time, and sometimes only 4 minutes apart. This continued all...night...long...
By 8am or so on Monday morning I made myself some oatmeal, sat down to eat it, had a contraction that stopped me just as I was putting the spoon to my mouth, preventing me from fulfilling yet another basic human need, and burst into tears. I was FED up, and Steve, who had slept through the night in the other room, came running, concern on his face. We called the OB office to schedule a non-stress test as requested by the midwife from the day before (to check on how the baby was doing during all these contractions) and I was fully prepared to demand that they induce me right then and there, because I could not take another two nights of these useless, unproductive, but sleep-defying and totally painful contractions before the scheduled inducement on Wednesday. We got there at 10am and met with Lesley, one of the midwives, and found that Acorn was doing just fine. Since I was there, Lesley decided to check me out too.
She looked at me, and said, "Elise." And then the happiest words in the English language: "The baby has fully dropped, you're at 5cm and 100% effaced!" (She also said that she was astonished I was at 5cm and still walking and talking. Apparently I'm a little tougher than I thought I was, given my despair.)
She actually offered to let us go home and wait it out another couple hours, or we could go ahead and admit to the hospital and break my water to move things along.
You can guess what I chose!
They had us in in no time -- all our bags were still in the car from the day before so we didn't need to go back and get anything -- and got me started on an IV right away, since I needed a full bag's worth of hydration before I could get an epidural. I had planned to see how much of the labor I could tough out -- to see if I could go totally natural -- but after two sleepless nights of contractions I decided to opt for the epidural if only to be able to relax for the first time in 48 hours and have the energy for the rest of the labor. The epidural was an incredibly weird feeling -- not often that you have something go POP! in your spine and think "oh thank god" -- but it was perfectly measured out so that I could still wiggle my toes and bend my knees and feel just enough pressure to be able to push. By the time the epidural was in and working and Lesley came by to break the amniotic sac, I was already at 10cm. So that painful dress rehearsal on Saturday night and Sunday morning was worth something -- it made my body incredibly efficient during the actual labor.
I ended up pushing for 2.5 hours or so. The epidural made this a pleasant experience and one I could manage with some stamina. Each time I had a contraction -- about every 3 minutes -- Steve and our delivery nurse, Enza, would lift my legs into a squat position, and I would curl forward and push as hard as I could 3 times in a row for 10 seconds each. In between, we chatted with Enza about her own (grown) kids, about their career choices and parental influence and college majors, like we were meeting over a cup of coffee with a long time friend. It was kind of funny in retrospect, but also kind of a lovely experience.
Finally Acorn's head was visible, and Lesley came back for the final pushes. I could feel pretty well -- not the pain, but the positioning and pressure -- so it didn't take much longer before Marian came out into the world at 4:29pm on 8/23/10, purple and slimy and quick to squall and then relax. She pinked up right away and got an apgar of 9 or so (apgar just indicates the baby's color, reflexes, and general health at the time of birth and then again 5 minutes afterward, and is on a scale of 1-10 where 10 is perfect).
She is absolutely beautiful, and born on her dad's chosen date for the baby lottery as well as being the gender he'd guessed all along, clearly already daddy's little girl.
Some of you wondered how Steve handled it -- he was a total champ. We both were so delighted by the news that I was at 5cm that we got a ton of emotional momentum back. He stroked my head through the final contractions I could feel before the epidural, helped coach me through the breathing during the pushing, kept me laughing, and was exactly the kind of support I needed at every given moment. He also got to cut the umbilical cord and held Marian for a long time while they finished up with me (I had one small tear but am otherwise fine).
I wanted to get this story out for those of you who were curious, but as we speak Miss Marian is looking a little hungry -- more to follow about the reality (and surreality) of the first 48 hours of her life!