Well, that wasn't the birth plan!

When Penny was born, I went to the hospital at midnight, labored there with an epidural, pushed for three (!) hours and then she was born at 10:45 AM or so. Naomi was even more exciting. Once the contractions were 5 minutes apart (at 4 AM), we went to the hospital. I checked in, settled into my bed, and they slowed and then practically stopped. She was born 12 hours later at 4 PM. Both times we had hours and hours to wait and twiddle our thumbs.
This is my frame of reference.
I had a bunch of contractions on Saturday night, which then stopped once I went to bed. On Sunday night (the due date) I was pretty sure that would be the night, so we shipped our girls off to sleep over at a friend's house, and then nothing happened.
Then last night, Monday night, contractions started and kept going very regularly, getting closer together and stronger. Textbook.
We had our friend, Shirley, come over to watch our girls again, and then at about 11:00 we all lay down to rest. The contractions were like 5-6 minutes apart, but not wanting to spend 12 hours laboring in a hospital bed, I went to bed. I figured they'd slow down like the other night, or essentially stop like when Naomi was born.
90 minutes later I woke up to STRONG contractions. They were strong enough that I realized if I'd been in the hospital, I'd have wanted my epidural already. Three minutes later, there was another one. I needed to probably wake Kevin up at this point. So I did, and again at three minutes there was another.
Then I got up.
Gravity's a funny thing. Each contraction then took about 1 minute 30 seconds each, and they were less than 2 minutes apart. Like 1:45. So in my spare 15 seconds, we woke up my mom, got our stuff out the door, down the elevator, and then my water broke in the garage downstairs.
As soon as my water broke, I couldn't help but push. I've watched enough TV to know that you can breathe through them to keep from pushing, so for the entire 10-minute drive to the hospital, I was alternating between breathing, hyperventilating, and pushing, despite my best efforts and my mom's coaching from the back seat.
At the hospital, I ran in and told the nurse that I was having a baby NOW. She got me a wheelchair and hurried me towards the doctor. I guess she hurried well enough, but she wasn't exactly Mr. Toad on a wild ride. They really didn't feel the same urgency as I did. The doctor casually got up from his desk and walked with us into triage. I struggled onto the table, and the doctor started listening for the baby's heartbeat. Well, I was finally at the hospital, with a doctor and nurses, so I kicked off one flip-flop, pulled one leg out of my pant leg and started to push.
Thanks to gravity and speed bumps, the baby was already crowned and ready to go at that very moment.
Thanks to my mom, I know exactly what happened. "Oh my gosh, there's a baby!" "There's the head!" and, "There's the baby!"
It took about that long, and I was holding a slippery, purple, healthy baby. Eventually they got the right clamps and stuff to cut the cord, and then a couple minutes later, Kevin came running down the hall and into our little room.
"Wow, he's here already!"
It took about 3 minutes from when we got to the hospital to when I was holding little William Lowell Fisher in my arms.
I guess if you're going to do it without an epidural, that's as long as it ought to take.
I'm glad my mom was there. Kevin had to go do paperwork and deal with bureaucracy for over an hour and a half. My mom held my hand and took care of me while everything got finished up.
I'm glad the baby came with no complications. No one was really ready for him, and I could tell that our ER doctor didn't deliver babies every night. But everything went smoothly-- as well as quickly.
I'm really REALLY glad Kevin had the foresight to rent a car from the Embassy for the night. Waiting for a taxi would have changed this story dramatically.

William Lowell Fisher