Yes!!! she's here, I'm so happy.  And it's so true that mother and father have such a different perspective on how things went.  On paper it sounds like wow!! it was awesome to have the baby in 3.5 hours, but was it really like that??????Embarassed. The truth is that after several fake calls within three weeks, neither Håkan, my mom or myself were really in that much of an alert. On tuesday night I started with some regular contractions and at 3am I asked Håkan to get me a stop watch.  Guess what? we didn't have a stop watch handy. And to add to the drama, when we both found our watches they turned out to be without batteries???? Can you believe that crap????

Anyway, so I started timing myself, but all of a sudden around 8 am, the contractions stopped completely.  So we decided to go on with our day.  I went to buy some shoes in town with my mom, to get my mind off of things.  And then met some friends for lunch.  While we were having lunch we were laughing so much that the contractions started slowly but surely. We were making even more fun of the situation cause we were really hungry, and I had decided to stay on the table until I had finished with my food.  I thought it was more important to eat than the contractions…. (as usual).

Half and hour later they started coming at what I thought were shorter intervals.  So I called the hospital when I got home, and they said to wait until they were every 3 minutes.  Håkan went to pick Daniel up at Daycare and I called him back cause even though they were not within the 3 minute interval, they were getting very painful.  All of a sudden I felt like a snap and some water coming out.  Not so much, but that made me decide to go to the hospital straight away.  Håkan came home  10 minutes later with Daniel. I was ready to go almost at the door. And he still sat on the stupid computer to make a post.  Yes of course I was annoyed!!! are you F…. kidding me????

The hospital is 25 minutes away and the contractions were coming every 10 min.  So I figured I had to endure two of them in the car.   And sure enough that's what happened.   By the time we arrived I thought the contractions had stopped.  They started to monitor and I didn't feel them coming as strong.  I was disappointed….. And just when I was about to give up.  One came strong.  The nurse decided to check how dilated I was, and she said it was surprisingly dilated 5 to 6 cm.  So it was time to take a bath or whatever I wanted to do.  

I was thinking more of the epidurial.  I was already tired from so much walking during the day, I didn't think I could handle labor with so little energy.  I settle with the gas for a little bit.  Then a bath and 10 min. later I decided for the epidurial.  This was the last chance for the epidurial and I took it.  Half an hour later, while I was still waiting and in pain, they came in with the news that it would take another 15min. before the anesthesiologist could come. There was an emergency in the hospital and there were no doctors to apply the shot! I wanted to die!!!! The nurse apologized and left… "MOTHER F……!!!!!!!!!!!!" IS what came out of my mouth…. (pardon my french).  But there was nothing left to do.  She decided to check again and sure enough I was FULLY DILATED!!!! She had to run out again to cancel the anesthesiologist.  We just had to wait  for the head to come down.  An hour later of pushing and yelling and dying there was still no head.  So the nurse suggested to stimulate the uterus contractions with the liquid.  Three drops later and a lot of pain and suffering and the head came down.  She said, "Great! well now 5 more contractions and she will be out!" I said  oh no!! one more… Next thing I know, she was out!

Hakan had given me his hands for support, and sometimes I just wanted to kill him, but at the same time I didn't want him to go anywhere.  He's never been so good with blood, so I know this was a stretch.  When the time came to cut the cord, I just saw he was looking up in the non existent sky. uhmmmm uhmmm….. "baby, they are talking to you.. do you want to cut the cord?" "OH NO, THANKS" came the nervous reply. And back to stare at the ceiling.  There must have been some pretty interesting light bulbs up there!!!!

Anyway, that was that, I had Annika in my lap and things were pretty smooth afterwards. What a difference from last delivery.  15 hours later I was back at home sitting having lunch at my kitchen table.