Abigail Zoe Hirsch makes her grand appearance to adoring crowds

On the heels of the contractions that started early that night, things got worse and we never got to sleep, though Brian was harboring dreams of perhaps him sleeping through the night and we'd call the doctor in the morning. I still couldn't quite believe that this was happening, but I also wouldn't time them on my own so Brian ended up staying up so somebody could time the contractions. By 12, the contractions had gone to 7-8 minutes apart, and by 2, they'd gone to 6-7 minutes apart. Also, by this point, if I got up the contractions got much closer together. We had decided that if they were consistently 6 minutes apart by 2:30 we would call the doctor.

We made it to 2:45, and the doctor said to go in to the hospital, but warned us that 6 minute apart contractions aren't necessarily indicative of active labor, but he wanted me monitored. So we went in, after I took a shower and for some weird reason insisted on doing my hair, even though standing I was having contractions that were 2 minutes apart! At the hospital and lying back down in the hospital bed, they were 3-4 minutes apart, so the monitor said.

About an hour later a resident made it to my room to check on my progress. Keep in mind I still fully expected to have little change, but it turned out I was already 5 cm and 95% effaced! So they called right away for the anesthesiologist and got me prepped for an epidural.

She was coming! We just about died from the shock! But labor was hurting. Really hurting. It didn't help when the nurse who came in to start my IV in preparation for the epidural really just flubbed it up. The two pains together were really too much, and it was after that but before the anesthesiologist came that I was really suffering. Fortunately that was only 20 minutes. The anesthesiologist started the IV right away. The good news was that the epidural was just amazing. The bad news was that it slowed my contractions back down to 6 minutes apart. So they started a pitocin drip and broke my water and said that in an hour I'd be ready to push. I was 8 cm by the time they broke my water.

Only about a half an hour later, we were ready, and right away there was progress. 44 minutes later, at 9:44 AM on June 25, 2001, our little daughter was born, all 7lbs 6oz of her. Then they took her for all the other tests, cleanings, etc., and that took well over 2 hours. They moved our room, gave Abby back to us, and left us to spread the good news.