Gentle Readers, sorry for disappearing off of the face of the earth for a few days. My weekend, she was nuttier than a hazlenut torte. When last we left our intrepid heroine, we'd determined I was going to be pregnant forever, stuck a 1.5-2 cm dilated, toting around a baby internally until I died of old age at 103. People were full of helpful suggestions of how to encourage labor- sex, spicy food, castor oil, jumping rope, zen meditation, making expensive plans that would be a pain to back out of (which, hell, that was the Cakebread dinner. We made it to the dinner, it was lovely, oh my god the wine. I figured slugging back alcohol and thus making it impossible for me to receive quality pain meds would be a surefire way to go into labor, but nooooo!), etc etc. Too bad my pepper allergy makes spicy food an issue, don't touch the cachongas, etc. But I have found the answer. Ladies, if you are pregnant in Johnson County and desperate to deliver, hie thyself to Jack Stacks, get a takeout order of wings, and have yourself a wings-n-nookie festival. Yes, I know, nookie at 39 weeks seems impossible. Rent a crane. Install scaffolding around your bed. I don't care. It works. Thank you god. What follows is the highlights of the hijinks, lest I bore y'all to tears like I did Leather Pants Grrrrl.

Saturday morning, at the chipper hour of 5:15 am, my snake brain said, "Get out of the bed. Right the fuck now." Trust princessy me to want to preserve the sanctity of the 300 thread count sheets. I announced to the Lad that my water had broken. He, romantic and supportive spouse that he is, inquired, "Are you sure?". A call to the doc's office and a chat with the midwife later, we were instructed to get to the hospital but not go crazy rushing there. We showered, we drank coffee and ate waffles (I have my priorities, damnit), we fired off emails to friends and I left assaults for the whores. We get to the hospital, and the comedy truly began in earnest. First they wouldn't believe me that my water had, in fact, broken, and performed complicated medical test (pH paper. Quoth the lad, "Damnit, I could have brought my own and gotten a freakin accurate read in less time") after complicated medical test, until finally the nurse midwife, under the instructions of a mysterious entity named "Dr Piquard" examined me in a manner which I hope never to be examined again, and pronounced that, exactly as she knew it had, my water had broken. She then cheerfully informed me that the baby was at least an 8 pounder, possibly 8.5 or 9, and would I like to start some pitocin now to get things going. For those who don't know, pitocin is a drug which bypasses the body's normal ramp up through labor and proceeds directly into HELLO contraction HELLO contraction HELL FREAKIN O (to use the technical terms from my old textbooks). I declined their kind offer of Pit and opted to walk the halls.

4 hours later, no progress. None. Zip. Zilch. Zotto. The Doctor Now Rapidly Becoming Known as "That Bitch Piquard" in my book ordered, via the phone (where the hell was she, ensconced on a divan at home, eating bon bon?) that I be put on Pitocin. Fiiiine. But, bonus, Stadol! I also started to get a raging food deprivation headache, which was a real suck since one is allowed ice chips. Exortations and pleadings later, and the nurse let slip that I could suck on hard clear candies as well. Little did she know that would prompt my husband to run to the Target visible from our hospital room, and stand there reading nutrition labels and comparing caloric and sugar quantities in various brands of candy, as well as buy me a couple of bottles of deceptively clear yet containing some small amount of calories flavored water. This would also be when we discovered that I'm quite amusing on Stadol, as I was having a perfectly lucid conversation with the Lad while they shot it into my IV, and then I thought I said, "Wow, everything's getting kinda dark and spinny and it's hard to keep my eyes open", which apparently came out of my mouth as 'Slartibartfast? Boutros Boutros Ghalli?'

7 hours later on the pitocin, which they were jacking regularly, and I had progressed 2 cm. Plus, they had managed to screw up the monitor so the peaks weren't peaking, making it look like I was completely pit resistant. Word of a C-section began to be bandied about. And then, That Force Of Uncomprehending Evil I Spit on the Graves of her Ancestors And Her Pets Piquard called and instructed the nurses to have ana give me my epidural and then crank the pit as high as we could, using an intrauterine monitor to make sure- I shit you not- that my internal organs didn't rupture under the onslaught. Um, guys, there's a baby in there, let's not rupture the snarklet condo with the smarklet in it. The guy from ana, a man with all the charm and personality of the loserest geek on your high school chess squad, came in, gave me the rundown on the epidural, and began to prep my back (something which took longer than usual thanks to my allergies. Me and Betadine? Not great friends.) As he was laboriously cleaning my back, making a sterile field by applying a sheet of glad wrap to me with a gallon of rubber cement, I was muttering to the lad about having never laid eyes on Piquard and not being happy and he knows how I am about needles, when the doc said, "You'll feel a pinch". Before I could ask, 'More tape?' he had me lidocained, epiduraled, and was taping the catheter up my back. Holy shit. 3 mintes later, I was in happy land, and mentally composing the lecture I was going to give Piquard if and when I ever laid eyes on her about what a nice doc the man from ana was, unlike her, the Foul Succubus From Hell.

3 hours later. 1 centimeter. Unsurprisingly, She Who At This Point Will Not Be Named was peturbed by this. And then I started to hurt. Immensely. Like, in a way that should not be happening with drugs being pumped directly into the epidural space. I commented to the Lad, who was becoming alarmed by my inability to speak every 90 seconds as I gripped the bedrail in agony and by the peaks on the monitor hitting 90 regularly, that if this was what it felt going from 4 to 5, I needed to be double tapped, right now. I finally rang for the nurse, who handed me the self dose button for the epidural and then said, "Holy crap, girl, there's a reason you hurt. You're at 9." Yes, 4 to 9 in precisely 60 minutes. I am famous on the ward now, as they had never seen a first time mom do that. And then I finally met Piquard, who despite the bad RPG illustration like image I had of her, turned out to be a petite redhead who'd been stuck at another hospital juggling 12 deliveries that day, and apologized profusely for being a voice of doom from afar. She then demanded that ana come and jack up my epidural, instantly wiping away all ill feelings I had towards her, because if you buy me off with quality drugs, I will apparently forgive you and perhaps even try to take back those mean mean nasty things I thought about your spouse and cat.

So by 1:30 in the freakin morning, they had me pushing. My nurse, a no nonsense woman, was joined by a young woman with a face like a moonpie and a sweet exorting demeanor which made me want to deck her, to the point where when she said for the 8 billionth time how well I was pushing I snapped, "If I'm pushing so damn well why is he not out yet?!" That shut her up, as apparently it's more common for wives to incogently scream at their husbands 'you did this to meeeeeeee' than for women to bust their nurses for being pollyannas. Eventually they decided I was close enough to summon Piquard back from another room, but they failed to tell me to stop pushing while the doc trundled down the hall, leading to a fabulous moment when Moonpie realized I could deliver righthtatsecond, and began squealing like a pig nailed with a taser. Kathy, my nurse, calmly told me to stop pushing and just breathe, and the Lad- who had wisely refrained from platitudes and stuck with 'he is moving, really, it's okay' sorts of things- leaned over and said, with just the slightest mote of panic in his voice, that I really really really ought to stop pushing and just wait. He would later inform me I really did almost deliver with no one primed to catch.

Sean Edward Ladlastname made good his entrance into the world at 2:57 am, April 27. 7 pounds, 10.25 ounces (take THAT nurse midwife), 20 inches long, apgars of 8 and 9 (we're such geeks). And that, readers, is just the beginning. You may all huzzah that the pregnancy bitching is over, and weep that the infant hijinks have just begun.

Next time: 40 sardines, homer do you like beer, we have the best friends and clients, and whose freaking kid is this?