Wow, it's been over a month since I've updated this blog.

Well, it's for a good reason. 3 days after my last post - July 28 to be specific - Baby D was born!

It's a... GIRL! We are absolutely thrilled. Mr. D & I were both convinced it was a boy. We were happy with that, although we really didn't care either way - we just wanted the baby to arrive!!

On the evening of the 27th, I thought my water had broken, so we went to the hospital. They told me my water had NOT broken, monitored me just to make sure, and then sent me home. Boo. I went to sleep around 11:30 that night, fully prepared to wake up and go to a training for work at 8 in the morning.

Around 1, I started waking up with cramps, but thought they were caused by my exam so I kept going back to sleep. At 2, the cramps were SO intense, and I realized they were coming and going, as opposed to being constant. "Hm," I thought, "Maybe these are contractions..." so I whipped out my handy dandy iPhone application which times contractions. Woah! If these were contractions, they were over a minute long and 3-6 minutes apart!

They tell you to go to the hospital if you are having contractions a minute long and 5 minutes apart. I still wasn't convinced this was "it," after all, I had just been to the hospital and I was fine.

So I tried to sleep through them. It became clear this was not going to happen. Mr. D asked if I was ok, because by this point I was writhing around and moaning. I told him I might be having contractions, so he got up. I went into the shower to try to put some hot water on my back. I'd been told that if it was Braxton Hicks contractions (the fake kind), a hot shower would make them go away. They just got more intense, though. So I got out and told Mr. D it was time to go back to the hospital!

At some point after this I was on all fours trying to relieve the pain as I put some stuff back into the hospital bag and got dressed. It hurt SO badly. We left the house and I called the on-call doctor again, who was clearly sleeping as it was 3:30 by this point and she sounded out of it. She tried to convince me that I was not really in labor, that a lot of first time mothers mistake Braxton hicks for the real thing, blah blah blah. She asked if I was already on the way, and when I said yes, she sighed and told me to go ahead and come in. So, if I hadn't been in the car, she would've suggested I stay at home.

Mr. D was listening to my pain-noises and asked if I had just had another contraction. When I told him yes he told me it was only 2 minutes from the last! Yikes! He was driving like a madman to get me to the hospital. I felt so much pain and pressure I really thought I might deliver in the car - but still was thinking maybe this wasn't the real thing, since my doctor didn't think it was.

We pull up to the ER and I get out, they wheel me upstairs and check, and sure enough, I was 7 centimeters dilated (10 is when you deliver). Things got chaotic. At one point I was told it was too late for an epidural, which drove me to the brink of insanity, but they were able to get one started. It slowed things down, but at 9 a.m. on the 28th, Baby D arrived.

She had some health issues so spent 5 days in the NICU, but we've been home for 3 weeks now. She is 4 weeks, 1 day old. She's beautiful and perfect, and Mr. D and I are absolutely in love.