My Birth - Chapter Three

From the time we left our house until we walked in the front door of the hospital Mandy had at least three contractions and the hospital is only a ten minute drive from our house. One of our fears in going to the hospital was that we would be sent home because she wasn’t far enough along. The nurse told us after Mandy’s first exam (5:30 PM) that she was only 1 ½ centimeters dilated and 100% effaced and we were pretty down thinking they would send us home, even if they didn’t we thought we would be in for a long night with such a long ways to go to 10 centimeters.
To our surprise the nurse told us we were in active labor and that they would start getting a room ready for us right away. So we started calling family, but we told them to take their time cause we had a long way to go. An hour later we had to call back and tell them to hurry cause she was now almost five centimeters. By 9:30 PM they had to really hurry because Mandy was now fully dilated and they were telling here to push. Both granddads were almost late to the hospital because they thought they had plenty of time to get there.
It was the oddest thing for us when they said it was time to push and they started rearranging the bed. We had been waiting for this moment for nine months and we couldn’t believe it was finally there. We were so excited and we knew in the next few hours we would meet our baby daughter.