Birth Story

Well, since I already had 2 requests to write about my birth story, I guess I'll share. I actually started writing it in the last post, but I wasn't sure if everyone wanted to read it. I'll just copy and paste what I sent out in my family email.
The two days before Erin was born, I was "nesting" like crazy. I was scouring the house, preparing Shelby's things for whoever would be taking care of her in case grandma was away for Christmas, washing baby clothes and blankets and getting the cradle ready, and buying diapers. Mind you this was about 4 weeks before Erin was actually due. Saturday I was having mild contractions all day but nothing to be too concerned about, I thought. My mom and Ben kept telling me I couldn't have the baby yet, it was too early (as if I could really do anything about it). Ben also threatened me about going to the hospital too early since we went twice with Shelby and were sent home before we actually had her on the third visit. Early Sunday morning, about 2am, I was awoken with the first of some harder contractions that wouldn't let me go back to sleep. I hung out in bed as long as I could stand it then went to watch a movie. I almost got through the whole movie until I couldn't bear it anymore and I was bawling through my contractions and starting to hyperventilate! My contractions weren't any closer than 10-15 minutes apart, so on hands and knees I crawled to my phone to call my mom, who happens to work in L&D at the hospital, to ask her if it was too soon to go in. She told me to get to the hospital and she'd be right over to take Shelby. Now it was close to 8am and in the 5 minutes it took my mom to get to my house I could barely even get dressed my contractions were coming so fast and furious. Thankfully the hospital is only about 2 miles from our house so it didn't take us long to get there. I had to stop twice going in because of contractions. The second one was in the elevator; I couldn't get off for a minute, and there was a guy on the couch right in front of the doors who couldn't help but be a part of our moment (lucky for him). I got right into my room and the nurse was working furiously to get me prepped because the pain of the contractions was so bad-commence screaming. I couldn't hold it in any longer, the screaming just got longer and louder as I progressed and I kept asking where my epidural was and after I got it how long until it worked then WHY ISN"T IT WORKING YET!!! I was dilated to a 5 when I got there and by the time the doc got there and checked me I was ready. The pushing was awful, I could feel everything, and the epidural didn't have time to catch up. Thankfully, Erin was born in less than an hour and it was all over. Recovery at the hospital wasn't bad and I hardly had to take many pain meds (unlike with Shelby, I was still begging for the strong stuff two weeks later). Coming home was nice but without much sleep. With Erin being a preemie, she's had a hard time at night feeding but is progressively getting better. We've had to take her to the hospital the past two days as well to get her bilirubin checked and one more time hopefully on Sunday to make sure it's ok and doesn't have to do light treatment. All in all, she's actually doing really well according to the pediatrician, so we're happy. Anyway, Ben's home on paternity leave until next week so he's helping out with Shelby most of the time and she's loving having a REAL baby around. That's it for now, I should really be in bed already.