So here's the story.....

Here's how it all went down...
On May 6th, I went to the dr's office, and he decided to strip my membranes- to kinda initiate labor. The day went on, and I felt nothing different. My sister-in-law called and said she wanted to make me a "going into labor" dinner. Sounded great to me. Edward and I went to Costco on May 7th with my dad stocked up on some groceries, and Edward just had to have a video camera that he saw (I was upset at the purchase, but now, I'm thankful he went ahead and bought it.) We went to Maggie & Josh's for dinner, then we went for a walk down the street to get some ice cream, and hopefully start some contractions. Still nothing.... Until-
Edward and I were on our way home, that I started to get some really weird back pains.. I thought this was just in my head- seeing as though I had been to the hospital 3x before with false labor. We proceeded on home- I jumped in the shower (just in case this was it), got comfortable in bed, and went off to sleep. About 3 hours later, I woke up with horrible cramps. I went to the restroom, walked around for a second, and another cramp hit me again. I laid back down, and started watching the clock, to see how far apart they were. Sure enough- about every 5 minutes. I watched for about half an hour when I finally woke Edward up. "You should think about getting dressed soon," I said. He replied,"It's time? Right now?" I said "I think so."
He threw some clothes on, I finished grabbing my bags, we locked up the dogs, took out the trash, and were on our way to the hospital. I went right into L&D Triage, and was hooked to monitors. I was in pain, but only at 3.5 cm. They said in order for me to get admitted, and be given some pain medicine- I would have to dilate more. Edward and I walked around the hospital for a bit, and they checked me again. Needless to say- I WAS ADMITTED! I didn't even know how to feel at that point, b/c I was excited, nervous, in pain.... They gave me a shot of morphine to kill the pain, but that didn't do much except for make me tired. They started an I.V. of pain medicine, which help, as I progressed to 9.5 cm. At that point, I was in so much pain that I went against what I wanted and begged for an epidural. It was administered. My water still had not broken at this point. The nurse asked if I wanted the water broken or if I wanted the baby to be born in the bag of water.. I asked if there was a less painful one, and she said it did not matter. She also added that in Chinese belief "a baby born in the bag of water has good luck." I figured what the hell- we could use some luck!! All of a sudden, my body went from feeling numb, to feeling everything.. I started to freak out, cuz the pain was getting more and more intense. They tried giving me meds 2 more times and nothing took. I was feeling horrible pressure, the nurse said I was not even contracting the whole time I was in pain, and that I should start to push. So I began pushing.... and BAM! My bag of water broke, shot off the table about 4-5 feet, leaving Edward in amazement, and my mom hysterically laughing. The nurse had fluid on her, and the floor had a huge puddle. I wish we would have caught that on tape. I continued pushing, and I seriously thought I was on my death bed. I stared at the ceiling tiles, just wishing this would be over- I was so exhausted and out of it. The nurse said I was pushing great, and that she could see the baby had hair..... Weird I thought. I thought that if I pushed really hard I was going to crap right there on the table, and finally I didn't care if that indeed happened. Imagine taking the worst, most painful crap of your life--- that's what giving birth feels like. I thought for sure my inside were going to shoot out of me. Then it hit me.... push as hard as you can, and this pain will all be over with. One, two, threeeeeeeeeee- and out he slid. All the pain went away, they caught him- daddy cut the cord (and almost the dr.'s finger) and they put him in a blanket and handed him to me. It was a really weird feeling, very euphoric, he was beautiful. I did not cry, I really didn't feel anything. I was so out of it, and so tired from all the work. Edward caught the whole birth on video- which I still won't watch. Maybe one day. They moved me into a Recovery room- where Edward, the baby and I stayed for 2 days. It was a cool experience and I recommend every woman to go through pregnancy and birth at least once in their life. Michael Edward Dobrowolski, is as perfect as they get.