Two years ago I was in labor

What FUN memories. I was still a week away from my due date but, as any woman who has been 39 weeks pregnant will tell you, I was ready for the kid to come out. I remember that I woke up at 2:30 am with these strange feelings, like cramps that went from my back around to my stomach and then back again. And they were regular. And kinda painful. I remember not turning on the light in the bedroom because Matt was supposed to be on call later that morning and I didn't want to wake him up. I wrote the times of each contraction (once I figured out that that's what they were) on a piece of paper in the dark -- pretty funny looking once I turned the light on later. I remember going into the living room and putting in my Princess Bride DVD to pass the time, all the while recording the contraction times. And after they had gone on continuously I was still afraid of waking Matt up, again, because of the whole call-shift-coming-up-thing. So I called the first year resident Natalya to ask her what she thought and what I should do. And her response "Well, is Matt there?" "Yes, but he's sleeping and he's on call so I don't want to wake him up." "So you called here instead of just waking up your husband??" "Yup." "Well, it sounds like you are in labor, maybe you could go wake him up and tell him now." "Oh, okay." So at 5:00 I shook him awake saying "Matt, you need to wake up. I've been having contractions for two and a half hours now and they started off more slowly but they have been seven minutes apart for a little over an hour and Natalya thinks I should probably come in." Talk about a way to wake someone up!

After that there was the phone call to my parents to let them know that we were heading to the hospital and the rush to make sure that everything was *really* packed and then the shower and dressing for the hospital. Note to self -- this whole process takes a long time so next time I will be showering a little more slowly, shaving my legs, doing my hair and putting on my makeup. (And making sure that my toenails look good. Ah yes, the big important thing to me was that when I was in labor I *WOULD* have pretty toes. Got my pedicure at 37 weeks so I timed it perfectly.) Matt dropped me off at the front door so I could go up to the floor and get checked in while he parked. (Yay free resident parking!) Turns out I was only 2 cm and, technically, they could have sent me home. But my doc was the attending on call and he decided that since I was a "VIP" I could stay and get set up in the nice big pretty labor room. Plus I would have access to drugs at any time (BIG plus!) Thus began my looooooong journey into mommy-dom. Unfortunately I would not sleep again for about 36 hours, but we'll do the rest of that story tomorrow. For now, my last pregnant pic -- what I looked like two years ago today :) Like the basketball look? (And notice the utter lack of hairstyle or makeup?? Yeah, SO doing differently next time.)