It's the Final Countdown

Actually, the countdown is over and he's here! My little mini-apple has arrived and let me tell you, he is wonderful. 10 little fingers, 10 abnormally to me long toes (Matt's genes) and he's here. But, give me a second to catch you up on some things that transpired.
After my last phone call with the clinic I figured that they could basically eff off. Seriously, I was carrying a legitimate reason for a c-section, not trying to engineer a surgery out of my own egotistical reasons. (Which doesn't even make sense to me.) Still, that damn clinic wouldn't even discuss the option with me. It's not just that I should have had the surgery - the baby could not possibly be BORN without it. So, I polled the many awesome moms that I know and my generally opinionated, awesome girlfriends and found myself a new clinic.
My new doctor (screw midwifery) was named Hope and she had very small hands. I took this as a good sign. She met with me and Matt and addressed all of our concerns and made it clear that she'd work with us - not dictating what we should and should not do. This was such a relief to me. So, ginormous with child, I waddled to and fro the new clinic during my Monday lunch hours for the next couple of weeks. Baby's heartbeat was good and strong and I was doing well.
C-Day was scheduled for Tuesday May 12th. I was so excited. My mom and sister arranged to take that whole week off from work and come down to help us out. Matt's last finals were that Wednesday, but he was able to make arrangements to take them early. We were pretty much set.
The weekend before everything was due to happen, Matt spent hours upon hours hunched over the laptop at our kitchen table writing furiously. He'd even taken to whispering conversations he hoped to have with instructors while in the shower (which is a sonically creepy experience for the random person walking through the hallway.) His back which had been healing nicely up until this point began to bother him again. Soon, it degenerated into vicious back spasms that wracked his entire body with pain. Monday, before I drove him to school, he lifted his shirt to show me an angry looking swath of red bumps. "Are those hives? You a little bit stressed out? Got a couple of things going on, do you?" I teased.
He went through with his finals and his papers and everything went smoothly. We were ready for baby time. Monday night my mom and sister arrived. We anxiously paced around our small house trying to occupy ourselves until morning. I turned in at 10, and finally fell into a fitful sleep around 11. Around midnight, I started having some mild cramps. That was annoying. Figures I'd finally start experiencing some painful baby having symptoms right before I get to give a laborless birth. Tres annoying.
1:30, okay, cramps are super annoying and I had to pee - AGAIN - and I wasn't getting any sleep on my ONE night before I was guaranteed never to get any sleep through a night ever again.
2:20 am - WHOA! What the hell -
I race/waddled to the bathroom and let loose a stream of not-pee. Definitely NOT PEE. I went from room to room and like a lost Ms. Pac Man trying to remember what I was supposed to do if I went into labor. What with the scheduling of the c-section, I really didn't commit that plan to memory. Call the hospital? No, that was the other hospital with the evil uncaring bossy midwives and their lack of care-giving. Wait - call... I had to call someone. Wake my mom? I'll get her in a minute - where's Matt is he still? Still sleeping. Um, um, um, um.....
I pulled the new doctor's card out of my wallet and called the number. The answering service gave me an option of contacting the on-call doctor. I did it right! YES! I'm still slowly leaking like Matt's mini-van's tranny. Running just about as herky jerky, too.
The answering service said that they'd get the doctor on call to call me back within twenty minutes. TWENTY MINUTES!? That's like an eternity in leaky cervix town! I couldn't wait that long! Moments after hanging up, she did call me back and advise that I go to the hospital right away. A-well - DUH!
I grabbed my packed bag, pulled on some clothes and woke my husband and mother. My sister was soundly asleep and I figured, we'd leave her behind - it might come in handy in case we forgot anything critical in our haste to leave. (Note to friends and comrades - THIS is the type of soldier that I would be. You will be left behind.)
We loaded into the car and drove from our house in St. Paul to Abbott off Chicago in 15 minutes flat - a trip that usually takes no less than half an hour. I played one of my favorite, relaxing music Cd's and enjoyed the ride. We only saw one drunk person and one cop - I thought Lake street would have been a lot more lively at that time of night.
Matt dropped Mom and me off at the emergency room and went to park the car. I pointed at my belly as we approached the two rent-a-cops at the door. They ignored me and I didn't really know if we were supposed to check in - like their sign said, or if I could just ignore them back. We just walked past them. What the hell was the point of them? We passed a hood-looking kid with a bandaged finger and got to the check in area.
"Hi, I'm having a baby." I said, feeling surreal like I'd dropped into a scene in a movie. The difference was there was no huffing and puffing. In fact, not much seemed to be happening except for the annoying, occasional cramp and the unpleasant leaking thing.
A nurse materialized with a wheelchair and ditched Mom and Matt - racing for an elevator. She told them not to try to keep up - they could meet me up on the maternity ward when they got there. Well, I didn't want them to have to catch up, I wanted them right there at all times, because holy - fuck - I'm about to have a BABY! Too late, though - I was already halfway down the hall with her. I could hear them, not far behind, but she wouldn't slow or so much as pause for them to join us. What was this, the French Connection? It's not a RACE woman!
She made it to the desk on the maternity ward to check me in and they wheeled me right in to a hospital room where I was asked to don the attractive faded blue gown and hop into bed. They had me resting there on a piddle pad - the same thing that we usually put out for my mom's miniature dachshund to piss on when the weather gets too cold for him to go outside. The indignities never end with this baby birthing business.
Mom and Matt were right behind us and we looked at each other momentarily triumphant. "Well... um.... so, uh now what?"
Since I wasn't progressing - movies get it so long - and wasn't even technically in labor, they decided to just wait until my original appointment time - 9:30 am. It was almost 3. 6 hours! 6 hours of waiting on top of being awake for those 6 hours that I'd planned to sleep through so I wouldn't be thinking about the fact that I can't eat or drink ANYTHING before the surgery and I knew I was going to be famished, because I was almost always famished. This was going to be a loooooong six hours. But, at least I'd still get to have the doctor that I'd chosen perform the surgery. I tried to take comfort in that as Matt and Mom wandered off in search of the 24 hour McDonald's the hospital has on site. Jerks.