Well, he’s finally here! Zachary Phillip Cook came into the world at 1:22pm central time today, Sept. 15, 2009 (his due date, concidentally enough). He weighed 10lbs 9oz and was 22.5 inches long, and I decided to try out natural delivery with this one, just for funsies. I’m an idiot. Anyhoo, he’s here now, and that’s all that matters!

Baby Zack

Har dee har, I can still be clever with my blog titles when I have only had three hours’ sleep in the past 24.

Warning: Exhausted Pregnant Lady Ranting Ahead.

Last night, I started having contractions, which is nothing new for the past few weeks for me. The new part was that these didn’t just come and go; they were 5 minutes apart for over 2 hours. So, I called my doctor’s office and they told me to come on down to the hospital. This was 1 a.m. (after I hadn’t slept at all yet).

Mike and I got all excited and drove to the hospital, where the nurse’s skeptical attitude gave me some pause. She seemed to think that since I was having contractions that didn’t cause me to scream out in pain, I wasn’t really in labor. I was determined to prove her wrong.

The contractions went on until 4a.m., but nothing else labor-y was happening. Grr. Then she told me to try to get some rest, and I did, though the contractions were more intense and closer together so I doubted my own ability to sleep through that. Unfortunately, I was wrong; the next thing I knew, I was waking up at 5:30, sans contractions. So I got to come back home to my two children who were already awake, and Mike had to go to work. Major suckage for both of us.

The doctor says we just have to wait and see when it’s the real thing, and the nurse told me that next time I should watch for contractions that get intensely more painful before I drag myself back to the hospital, if I want to avoid a repeat of last night’s episode. She said I could have gone into the contractions because of dehydration or over-exertion, so I should try to avoid those things in the future. Yay.

The good news: my doctor says she can induce me after the 25th if I haven’t delivered on my own by then. Oh wait, that’s not good news, that’s crappy news; I’m due on the 15th.

Maybe I should try bribing the baby …