Hurricane Jane

Finally...the labor and delivery story.  Savannah Marie was born on February 13, weighing 8 lbs, 4 oz and was 20" long.  It was the fastest, most surreal, intense, life-changing hour of our lives; within 60 minutes from the very first contraction (not a typo - 60 MINUTES) we welcomed our second baby girl.  At the hospital...barely.  Here is a quick breakdown of how things went.

• 7:45 AM - contractions start out of the blue and are less than three minutes apart.  I quit getting dressed for work, ask Paul to finish helping Lucy get dressed so I could lay down to time a few contractions.  The next one?  Two minutes from the last one.  They are immediately strong, quite painful and definitely not slowing down. 
• I tell Paul this is happening NOW and to call my mom and put some pants on; we need to be in the car waiting when she gets here. 
• My mom shows up at our house.  Paul is frantically searching for his keys (that we later learn had been thrown in the toy box by Lucy...), ends up grabbing the spare and we are off to the hospital.
• We enter the hospital through the Emergency Room around 8:15 AM.  I suddenly feel very nauseous and ask for a barf bag.  The ER is empty besides a very nice janitor who grabs a barf bag and hands it to me.  Paul rubs my back, I rudely knock his hand away just in time to hear the nice ER janitor say, "Sir, you are doing a great job.  It's just that what is happening to her right now REALLY hurts."
• We run into two folks in the ER who aren't in as big of a rush as I would like for them to be.  Contractions are less than two minutes apart and the dude checking me in asks me three times (ask Paul, it's true) who my doctor is.  They finally start to understand that I'm not just being dramatic, we REALLY don't have time for this; they rip the thermometor out of my mouth, the heart monitor off my finger without getting a reading and finally wheel me to the elevator. 
• This is the exact moment Paul remembers he has left the car out front, running with all of the doors open.  Right.  Like a bad movie, that really happened.  He runs away, illegally throws his car in park somewhere, runs back and we get on the elevator.  It jolts as we depart the main floor and I decide I might again need the barf bag.  I reach to Paul demanding it (I'm trying to be accurate, yes, I was demanding) and he delivers the terrible news that he has left it in the ER.  I inappropriately exclaim, "What the F*!% Paul!" and apparently looks were exchanged between Paul and the man pushing my wheelchair.  I can laugh about this now, but if I had known at the time, neither of these men would have survived the next minute. 
• We arrive at the maternity unit and the man pushing my wheelchair is far too calm, polite and cheery greeting the nurses behind the counter, even making mention of the "evil wheelchair" he has because it has a squeaky wheel.  Again, if I'd had the strength, I would have strangled him.
• A nurse behind the counter sees that we really don't have time for his friendly henanigans and she frantically pushes me into an unprepared delivery room.  In that moment about 10 people appear to ready the room.  I remember only parts of the next 20 minutes or so, but with help from Paul it went something like this:
• The nurse tells me to undress, I tell her there's no way in hell I can do that, so they rip my clothes off and gown me (kind of) and I'm in the bed in about 60 seconds.
• I apparently tell a nurse (between SCREAMING contractions) that I need an epidural.  Paul remembers this clearly.  One nice nurse politely says, "we'll let you know if we have time" while about eight others laugh hysterically knowing there is no chance in hell that there will be time for that.
• A nurse tells me they are going to put an iv in my arm - it never happens.
• A nurse checks me...I'm at a 9 and ready to push.
• The same nurse confirms that my doctor has been notified that we are ready to push (I'm so thankful that her office is in the hospital or she never would have made it!); I hear someone say she's been called and the nurse says to call her again telling her this baby is coming NOW.
• She walks through the door, I see them gown her and she steps to me and says, "let's have a baby!"
• I remember screaming saying that I can't do it.  And she talks me down insisting that I can but that I need to just concentrate and turn on my back.
• At this point I'm experiencing intense back labor and I tell her there's no way I can get on my back (I'm on my right side at this point).  She just says, "ok, well then we'll do it like this.  Lift up your left leg and push." 
• I pull it together long enough to push as hard as I can and at 8:46 AM out popped this little miracle we call Savannah.  I was on the delivery bed for less than 10 minutes before she was born.
• The nurses nicknamed her "Hurricane Jane" because she came "fast and furious."  When the woman came in to have us verify her birth certificate she was actually a little surprised to find that her name wasn't Jane, because that was what Savannah was being called in the nursery. 

This doesn't even begin to do justice to how crazy this morning was for us.  But a short three weeks later I can look back and laugh and more than anything I feel grateful that we made it to the hospital at all.  I have a feeling we might be in for a wild ride with both of these girls of ours!