You asked for it, so here's my labor story -- FINALLY!!! (super long)

Now that my computer is cooperating (for now), I can tell you my labor story -- which was just like an 'I Love Lucy' episode.

As you all know, the dr put me out 2 weeks early for the GD, so my first week home from work was not spent 'relaxing' -- I have no clue what that word means -- it was spent running to the dr once a week and the hospital twice a week for a NST (non-stress test) and sonogram. Meanwhile, my house looked like who did it and ran because my all the baby stuff from my shower was all over my diningroom since the furniture still didn't come in.

On Sept. 2 the furniture was finally coming, but I had a NST and couldn't reschedule it, so I had my parents come over and wait for the furniture while I ran to the hospital. On my way to LIJ, the 'low coolant' light comes on in my car (it sounds like my car is falling apart, but it really isn't -- right Cira and Michelle?) and I was like 'here we go'. But I kept watch of the temperature and the car was running cool, so I just thought it was because I went on a curve. Now the Bear Cub (aka Gianna) is moving up a storm which was good since I'd be in and out quick. WRONG!!! It seems she was moving SO MUCH that the nurse felt there was something wrong (accelerated heartrate for over an hour) and sent me down to Labor & Delivery to be checked out!

So, very calmly (you know after all I went through and after walking home in the Blackout, nothing fazed me) I go down to L&D. I had to ADMIT myself and then I called home to tell my mother that I'm in L&D but not to get excited because I'm not in labor. And I forgot to tell her not to tell Joe if he called because he would freak, but she didn't tell him, so that was good. So they hook me up and the nurse asks me if I'm stressed and I tell her I'm not stressed about the baby -- at this point having the baby will be a piece of cake, it's the fact that my furniture is coming, my house is in an uproar and my car may or may not be overheating. She laughed and told me that everything is just fine and the heartrate is perfect, she didn't know why they got all alarmed. Fine, off I go home.

On my way home the temp was going up in the car, so I threw on my heater -- IT'S ABOUT 90 DEGREES OUT, but in order for the car NOT to overheat, you need to draw heat away from the engine, so you put your heater on to do that (learned that from my days of driving a 1969 car). Car is fine until I get to my block and double park next to Joe, who is babbling on the cell phone -- and on a side note, this is the man who can't stay more then 5 minutes on the phone w/me when he calls -- babbling away w/his cousin and was totally ignoring my beeping and telling him to move his car so that I can park there. He gets out of his car and tells me 'you're leaking antifreeze' -- THANKS BUDDY, MY CAR JUST OVERHEATED BECAUSE YOU WOULDN'T MOVE!!!! I wanted to hit him, I swear!! He was in a hurry to go see the furniture, does he bother to ask me how it went at the hospital??? So I said 'hey buddy, do you know that I had to admit myself to L&D and just came from there?' and he just paled!!!

Now we're eating dinner and discussing how I'm going to get to my dr's appt on Thursday since my car isn't working and my mother wasn't going to be around. Joe tells me to see if I can get an appt for the next day, Sept 3, which is what I did.

My mother picks me up in the morning and I head off to the dr. I end up seeing the third dr in the rotation (who I haven't seen since I had the itchy boob thing) and she did an internal of all internals that I swear if I didn't go into labor right then and there, it wasn't ever happening!!!! She tells me that I'm going to be induced either Monday (9/8) or Tuesday (9/9) if I don't go before then and that she'd call me later with the date. I made my appt for Monday and left.

On the way home, I stop at BRU for a few things and my mother drops me off at home. I was planning on walking to get my nails done, but it seems my little Cub had other plans for me because an hour and a half after leaving the dr MY WATER BROKE!!!!!! The funny part was I had hung up the phone w/my friend because I had to pee, so I go pee and when I went to wash my hands, I thought I had peed in my pants!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I said outloud 'oh, you can tell the difference'!! It was NIAGARA FALLS and I didn't know how I was going to get from the bathroom to the phone without leaving a trail on my rug!!!

I put on those humongus pads and run for the cordless and come back to the bathroom and have to put on another 3 pads and call the dr, who tells me to go straight to L&D!!! I haven't even called Joe yet!!!!!!

Meanwhile, I am calm, cool and totally collected. The only thing I'm worried about is calling Joe and him driving home from Jersey. I called his job and spoke to his boss and he told me he would have Joe call me right back, which he did. He starts yelling 'I JUST SPOKE TO YOU, WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOUR WATER BROKE? YOU'RE KIDDING ME!' and I said no, just meet me at LIJ and I'll bring your clothes.

Hang up with him and call my mother, who is MIA -- and my biggest fear was that I'd go into labor and NOBODY WOULD BE AROUND and that's EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED!!! My mother went to get her hair done and shut off her phone by accident, so I called my sister (who lives in Jersey BTW) and asked her to keep calling my mother's cell because I had to finish packing (yes, last minute Lucky didn't have her bag fully packed -- I did have the baby's packed though). Meanwhile my poor father was a nervous wreck, but managed to find the number of the hairdresser and called her there.

Before I hopped in the shower, I called Nanny down (she lives upstairs) to have her answer the phone. The poor woman was a nervous wreck and couldn't understand how and why I was taking a shower!!!! Not for nothing, but I felt disgusting and I had to take a shower.

My mother pulls up and off I go to the hospital with 3 pads and a towel between my legs (Joe said it looked like I had on diapers). We get to the corner and this madman is behind us flashing his brights and beeping like a lunatic -- guess who that might be??? My wacky hubby who flew home from Jersey in 20 minutes!!! He jumps out of his car (in the middle of the street no less) and starts yelling (he yells when he's nervous ) and is asking my mother what happened.

HELLO, while these two are chatting about who should drive, I tell them to just take the bag out of the trunk and put it in Joe's car. They take the bag out of my mother's car and LEAVE IT IN THE STREET!!!! I'm telling you, it was an I Love Lucy episode. I'm standing there, with my pillow and my cell phone (my friend had called me) trying to apologize to the people behind us saying 'I'm sorry, I'm in labor and they're a bit nervous'. The guy thought we were all nuts!!

Get in Joe's car (bags and all) and we get to the corner and Joe screams 'WTF IS THAT??' and I, very calmly, say 'Joe, you have a flat tire' and he jumps out of the car and pulls this thing out of his tire and shows it to everyone and says to my mother 'ALICE, IT'S A F****** SCREW, LOOK' and my mother is going 'where did you get that from' and I'm sitting in the car (leaking like a friggin sieve) yelling 'who gives a rats a$$ where he got it from, park the car and let's take the Jetta'!!!

It's a good thing we have 3 cars because we are now down to the last one!!

In the meantime, the next door neighbor's sewer pipe burst in our basement, so DEP was there digging up our street and was blocking the driveway and Joe starts backing out w/o telling them to move, so I had to go over and ask the truck to move. I swear to God, this was a comedy of all errors, but then again, look who we're talking about here.

Are you bored yet?

We get in the car and FINALLY get on the LIE and I'm hysterical laughing because Joe is a nervous wreck!!!! We get to the hospital and he's trying to find a spot closest to the elevator, which he does, but the girl is sitting in her Audi gabbing on the phone. Next thing I know, he runs out goes over to the car and yells 'My wife is in labor, move the friggin car NOW please' and SHE DOES!!!!! He starts heading for the stairs and I said 'um, hello, where are you going?' and he yells that he needs a cigarette and he'll meet me downstairs! Is he kidding me? I take the stairs with him.

Now, I really didn't have contractions at that point, although I was told that I was having them. To me it felt like period cramps, but I get those MUCH worse, so it wasn't anything. I felt crampy all morning, but didn't think anything of it. I was more concerned with the river that I was leaking all over the place!

And there's Joe running the marathon to the hospital and asking me 'what's wrong' because I'm a million miles behind him!!! And I should add how he looked -- he was the epitome of a grease monkey!! He had the do-rag on, covered and smelling like grease and there are the other husbands, all clean and quiet!!! Oh and he had on a San Gennaro Feast t-shirt on, which was totally appropriate, since that's where we met!

There were 4 other couples in labor, but they don't go in order of how you came in, but how far along you are. I felt bad because they took me before this other girl whose contractions were 5 minutes apart since my water had broken.

Now on to the labor. I had MAJOR BACK LABOR AND WAS IN HORRIBLE PAIN because Gianna was 'sunnyside up' as they called her. I got to the hospital at 2:30 (my water broke at 12:45PM), but they didn't induce me (gave me cervidel - sp?) until around 7 and I was fine, except for my back. At one point, and the only point I got mad at Joe, I was having a 'normal' contraction (normal meaning it wasn't affecting my back at that point) and I was breathing and he asked me 'what's wrong baby?' EXCUSE ME!!!! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK IS WRONG?? So I said 'I'm having a contraction, how far apart are they?' and he goes, are you ready?
'I don't know, I wasn't keeping count' WHAT????????? WHY ARE WE HERE BUDDY???? OOOOO, I gave him such a look. After that, he paid attention and was very nervous for me because I was in such pain with my back.

The pain was getting so bad during Paradise Hotel (I was so pissed because I couldn't concentrate at the end of it and didn't know what happened ), that they finally gave me Staidol (sp?) for my back and I was knocked out for a couple of hours. I woke up SCREAMING for an epidural but it was apparently too late for that. I got up to go to the bathroom (at that point, I didn't know whether I wanted to pee, throw up, poop or push) and the nurse starts yelling at me to stop because it might be the baby's head, which it was!! I went from 4 centimeters to 10 lickitysplit and couldn't have an epidural!!! Apparently the cervidel worked like a wonder drug on me and I went much faster then normal. That's because this little Bear Cub wanted out of there!!

Time to push!!! Which wasn't that bad for me -- I only pushed about 20 minutes and out she flew, screaming and wailing up a storm at 1:52AM!!! I was still half-looped at this point and trying so hard to keep my eyeballs straight! Joe got to hold his clone (oh boy is she mini-me!) and was crying when he brought her over to me! Surprisingly enough, I didn't cry.

Then they had to take Gianna to NICU because she was insulin dependent (which I had just renewed 2 days before she was born and which was FINALLY brought under control 2 days before she was born FYI). She was perfectly fine, but they just have to monitor her for 4 hours after birth. She was back in the nursery by 6:30AM.

As for the diabetes, they checked my sugar twice while I was in labor, but after that NADA!!! It's amazing how it just POOF disappears! I did check it myself the next day and it was under 90 -- it took me how many weeks to get under 90 before she was born! Then I went for my 2 hour glucose test 6 weeks post-partum and it was fine.

I was up and about and walking all over hours later for the breakfast buffet (hey, I finally got to eat all the stuff I couldn't while preggo ) and felt fine. But I pushed myself too much by the next night because my feet blew up, which I got yelled at for by the nurse.

And that my friends is my story!!! I'm ready for the next one!!!!

I have to say that I did miss being pregnant! It was very weird to not have that belly the next day. But it's the BEST THING TO HAVE HER IN MY ARMS!!!!