In the Labor and Delivery Room

On Saturday night at about 11:30 pm I started having pretty regular contractions. I timed them until 1:30 am and they were coming about every 8-10 minutes apart. At that point I was pretty sure I was in labor and sent an email to friends and family in the US since it was 4:30 pm their time. I told them that I thought I was in labor, but that I was going to try to get a little more sleep before we went to the hospital. I slept until 5 am on Sunday morning, and during that time my contractions slowed down and eventually stopped. I thought that this baby was going to stay in forever. I joked with Lincoln that if we really wanted another child that we were going to have to adopt.
Lincoln took my mom, Gloria and the kids to church Sunday morning while I just stayed home and waited. Finally at about 3 in the afternoon the contractions started up again coming about every 10 minutes apart. They stayed at about 8-10 minutes apart for 2 hours and then suddenly at about 5 pm they started coming every 3-4 minutes and were getting very painful. Lincoln called my doctor at about 5:15, and I sent out another email letting people know that we were on our way to the hospital. I was admitted at 6:05 pm. The nurse took my vital signs and did all of the preliminary things then did an exam. She said that I was 4 cm dilated. She asked if I wanted an epidural and I told her that I probably did and she said we would wait until my doctor got there and let him know. When my doctor, Dr. Holcher, arrived at about 25 minutes later he checked me and said that I had already dilated to 8 cm and it was too late for an epidural. He told he would be back 30 minutes later to check on me again. While he was gone, at about 7:00 pm the contractions got much more painful. I was given nitrous oxide, or laughing gas. Believe me, I was not laughing. I am not sure that it did anything expect make my face feel like it was slipping off. At around 7:30 I had dilated to 10 cm and started pushing. This was absolutely, horribly painful and I think that I will need some therapy to get over it. Thankfully I only had to push for about 25 minutes and at 7:55 pm little Kendi Grace Denny Smith made her entrance. I wish I could say that the second I saw her face all memories of the pain were washed away in a moment of joyous bliss, but that would be a complete lie. I wasn't so much happy to see her as I was just to have her out. But within minutes she completely captured my heart. It is so hard to believe it is even possible to have so much love for someone that you just met.