Man and a woman had a little baby. Yes, they did. That made three-ee-ee in the family. That's the magic number.

Our labor story begins on Sunday morning, around 4:00. I awoke to some pretty strong contractions. Greg helped me to the bathroom where I stood over the sink, and he rubbed my back while I was hit by simultaneous waves of contractions, nausea, heartburn, and acid reflux. Not a pretty sight. Over the course of an hour I started passing my mucous plug and soft stool, all positive--if not pleasant--signs that labor was beginning. But by 5:00 my contractions were petering out, and we went back to bed. Throughout the day on Sunday I had occasional contractions but with no real pattern emerging. We called our doula to let her know what was happening, and her opinion was that we would probably be in labor either that night or the next day. We went to bed that night thinking tomorrow would be the big day.

Sure enough, Monday morning I awoke at 7:00 to even stronger contractions. We had a doctor's appointment at 8:30 a.m., and on the car ride there my contractions were coming every 6 to 7 minutes and lasting about 20-30 seconds. At my appointment I was hooked up to a monitor to measure the fetal heart rate and my contraction pattern. We spent the next 2 hours in the doctor's office measuring baby's heartbeat which, while in the normal range, failed to accelerate--an indication that baby is still happy and moving about. Why was baby so sleepy, my doctor wondered? Just to be safe, we were sent to triage at Swedish for further monitoring. There, I spent another 2+ hours on the monitor. Baby's heartrate showed just enough accelerations to rule out being in the concerning-sounding "non-reactive" state. With the doctor's blessing, we were allowed to go home and continue laboring there.

Monday night was hard. Exhausted, we went to bed around 10:00. Greg was able to fall asleep, but I was getting up every 15-20 minutes to go to the bathroom or to breathe through the stronger contractions. By 11:30, I gave up on the idea of trying to get some sleep and retired to the rocking chair in front of the TV to watch Letterman. Around midnight, a ginormous contraction hit, and I cried out. Greg flew out of bed to my side and helped me breathe through it. As the night wore on, it seemed my contractions were lasting longer and coming more frequently, so Greg started timing them. Most followed the pattern of being 5-6 minutes apart and lasting a minute or more. To be admitted to the hospital, however, they needed to be 4 minutes apart. It seemed we were getting closer.

Three late night TV talk shows later and one Russian WWII movie later (it's easier to read subtitles than it is to listen to dialogue during a contraction), my contractions were less frequent: 10 minutes, 12 minutes, 15 minutes apart. It was 3:30 a.m. when I decided I had a shot of dozing off in the in-between, so we went back to bed. I think I managed to even sleep for a half-hour stretch, though mostly I was getting up every 15-2o minutes. Greg looked like he was sneaking in little cat naps between my moaning and getting up.

We stayed in bed until 6:00 Tuesday morning. What we did on Tuesday is somewhat a blur. I remember we walked to the store to get a paper and juice, pausing to "slow dance" when a contraction came, which must have looked incredibly strange to the people passing by. Mostly it seems we passed the time reading, eating, drinking lots of fluids, watching The Price is Right (and speculating about Bob Barker's age and how one becomes a Barker's Beauty), and making frequent trips to the bathroom. Late that morning, our doula Jennifer called, and she suggested she come over to help. We agreed, and none to soon, as my contractions seemed to be getting stronger after we got off the phone. Greg drew me a bath, and I labored in the tub through some of the strongest contractions yet.

I got out of the tub just before Jennifer arrived, feeling renewed. The unfortunate side-effect of the tub, though, was that my contractions were now further apart than before. Assuming they'd pick up again soon, I took advantage of the break by trying to sneak in a nap. I never fell asleep, but I was resting fairly comfortably for a luxurious 45 minutes. Greg fixed me a lunch of beans and a tortilla, and I was ready to take a walk to 1. speed up my contractions again, and 2. try to wake up baby in anticipation of a 2:50 appointment to go back to my doctor's office for more fetal heart rate monitoring. Jennifer and I took a short stroll around the neighborhood on a gorgeous sunny spring afternoon, feeling hopeful that we were making progress.

Back to the doctor's office where--surprise!!-- baby is non-reactive after 2 hours of monitoring. We follow the well-worn path back to triage to await a later visit from my doctor.

After 2 more hours on the monitor, my doctor checks in. While she seems less concerned about baby's heart rate, without contractions 4 minutes apart or a broken bag of waters, she'll have to send us home again. She was checking my cervix (5 cms!) when part of my bag of waters broke. Finally, we're admitted!

The birth suites are super luxurious (especially when compared to the all-ecru triage). There are beautiful hardwood floors, an en suite bath with jacuzzi tub, and picture windows looking out on the Seattle skyline. Our labor and delivery nurse, Briia, is super upbeat and positive, and we take to her immediately. We go over our birth plan with her, and she lets us know that my cervix should dilate one centimeter per hour. When my doctor comes to check on me around 8:00, I'm at 6 cms. I do the math: I should be fully dilated by midnight; the baby should be here sometime early Wed. a.m. We settle in for what we hope will be an uncomplicated birth.

At 10:00 my doctor checks my cervix. The news isn't what we hoped: I'm still at 6 cms. Time to start walking. We find a stairwell, and start climbing. I rest in a squat position between floors and try to visualize baby's head descending. We climb 5 flights up before descending 10 floors to the ground floor. Taking the elevator back to the birth suite, we feel hopeful that I've made progress.

The doctor says otherwise around midnight, so it's back to walking the stairs for us. I had envisioned being fully dilated by this point, so to still be at 6 cms was a disappointment. I remind myself that we've already come through almost 2 full days of labor, so waiting a little longer for baby to arrive is no big deal in the grand scheme.

Wed. March 26, 1:00 a.m.: More bad news. I'm still at 6. My doctor looks concerned. She says without contractions every 2-3 minutes, I will probably not dilate. She recommends that I go on Pitocin, an intervention for which just about every woman I know who's taken it has a horror story. Despite the stories, I assent.

2:00 a.m.: The contractions are coming faster, stronger and with little warning. It's tub time! And none too soon. I have contractions that feel like I'm being cut in half. The jets of the tub are soothing in between contractions, but soon the contractions are coming one on top of the other. For the first time in my labor, I start to cry. Briia asks if I'd like an epidural. The doctor is coming to check my cervix soon, so I want to wait and see what she says.

When the doctor shows up, I have to get out of the tub and walk (shuffle is probably more accurate) back to the bed, which I manage to do with Briia and Greg's help. Before she can tell me, I already know the results of the doctor's exam from the expression on her face. Despite everything, we are still at 6. I tell Briia I want the epidural now. She calls anesthesia to order one, and I ask if I can have fries with that. If I couldn't laugh about the situation, I would cry.

At 3:00 I get the epidural, and by 3:30 I can no longer feel the contractions, or my legs, for that matter. We all settle in to try and get some sleep. My hope is now that with some rest, my body can relax enough to dilate my cervix.

By 6:00 I'm awake again, and Briia calls the doctor to come examine me. She explains to us that while I was sleeping, my contractions seemed to have lost strength, so they upped my Pitocin. For about an hour between 4:30 and 5:30, they noticed that baby's heart rate was decelerating after my contractions, so they lowered my Pitocin dosage, and that over the past hour, baby's heart rate seemed to re-stabilize. However, my cervix was still only dilated 6.5 cms. It was now time for us to decide: Did we want to continue to labor and hope that baby and I continue to remain stable, or would we like to go ahead with the C-section?

Alone with Jennifer and Greg, I admitted that I thought we should have the C-section; it felt like we had tried everything we could, and I was ready to be done and have the baby here. Greg said he felt the same. Jennifer said it occurred to her that baby there was some protective reason why this baby did not want to be born vaginally.

As I was being wheeled down to surgery, Jennifer asked everyone their guess about the baby's sex. "That's right. Last chance to place bets," I joked. I said I thought it was a boy, and Jennifer, my doctor, and the nurse all thought the same. Only Greg said he thought it could still be a girl.

At 7:44 a.m. we had our answer. Greg looked over the screen, and with tears in his eyes, turned toward me and said it's a girl! In an anesthetic blur, I said, incredulously, "It's a girl?" The surgery team asked us what her name is and Greg told them that because I was so sure it was a boy, we never decided on the girl's name.

Although we'll never know for sure, I also learned some strong evidence why I never dilated. The nurse who weighed her announced the birth weight to us: 10 lbs. 10.6 oz. Her head measured 15 inches! I think this baby knew I did not want to push her out. She was trying to spare her mom a really painful birth.

Despite all the kinks along the way, I really feel positive about how my labor went. I got to labor naturally for almost the entire process. I had an incredibly supportive team who backed my decisions, even though I know it required a lot of stamina on their part, too. We really exhausted all our options for a vaginal birth, so when it came time to decide, the C-section really was our best choice. And while our birth story took some unexpected twists, I could not have wished for a better ending.