Introducing... Owen the New Year's Day Toilet Baby

There's a lot you don't know as a first time mom and nothing showed how unprepared I was than Owen's actual arrival.  Because the story's so outrageous, it needs to be told in its entirety.  So please sit back and prepare to think, "No way, she didn't actually do that."

New Year's Eve (December 31, 2010)
Niles and I drove down to Gaithersburg, Maryland to meet up with some good friends of ours for New Year's Eve dinner.  Along the way, I stopped at my mom's house where I accidentally mixed up my phone for her phone since we had exactly the same free phone offered by AT&T.  I ate an entire appetizer, entree, and dessert from Macaroni Grill that night.  In retrospect, this should have been a clue of impending labor/delivery since before this, I struggled to finish half an entree since Owen took up so much room in my stomach.  Niles had become accustomed to only ordering an appetizer since he knew he would have to finish my dinner.  Later that night, I realized I had swapped phones with my mom.  I shot her an email assuring that I'd drive back down later that week to pick it up.  Then Niles and I went off to see the fireworks over Annapolis.

Approximately 4:30 am New Year's Day (January 1, 2011)
I wander out of bed to use the bathroom.  I've become accustomed to needing to pee at least three times a night.  Just as I enter our bathroom, I feel a gush of water exit.  I look down at the floor and think, "Hmm...  Either I really lost control of my bladder or... my water just broke." 

Me to Niles: Wake up!  My water just broke.
Niles (still in bed): Haha.  Your water just broke. 
(He then proceeds to roll over and go back to sleep.)
Me: No, I mean it!  My water just broke!!!
Niles: What?  You're not due for another month!  Our hospital bags aren't even packed!  The house is a mess!  People are going to come over to see the baby.

Niles was too freaked out to talk to the labor and delivery people so I got to tell them calmly that my water broke but had no contractions.  I knew I had to deliver within the next 24 hours.

I went to call my mom to tell her... until I remembered I had her phone.  It took calling my sister to get the name of my mom's friend who lived in her neighborhood, calling said friend who turned out to be North Carolina visiting her daughter, and finally waking up another of my mom's friends to convince to drive over to my mom's house to wake her up and let her know I was in labor.

Niles called his parents to tell them I was in labor.  His father, no kidding, did EXACTLY the same thing Niles did: laugh and try to fall back asleep before saying sleepily "Talk to your mother."  My mother-in-law's sleepy response to Niles (no kidding) was, "What do you mean Alyssa's in labor?  We're in Delaware!  If we had known she was going to be in labor, we would never have gone to Delaware!"

Approximately 6:30 am at our house
Me to Niles: Sweetheart, it's been about two hours.  We've showered, you started the laundry, picked up the living room, packed our bags...  It's probably time for us to get to the hospital.  It's at least a half hour drive to the hospital.
Niles: I want to get a load of dishes in the dishwasher first.

Approximately 7:00 am at the hospital (finally)
Intake staff member: You're the woman who called us at 4:30 this morning?  When we said to take your time, we meant to not speed on the way here.  We didn't mean come in here two and a half hours later.
Me: My husband had a last minute nesting phase.

Approximately 7:15 am in the triage room
Triage doctor: On a scale of 1 to 10, what's your pain level?
Me: Oh, I don't know... a 2 maybe.  I'm a bit uncomfortable.
(Triage doctor proceeds to check how far I'm dilated.)
Triage doctor: Well, you're 5 centimeters.  I can see the baby's hair.  You need to get into a room.

Approximately 8:30 am in my delivery room
Me to my mom: I want an epidural now!
Nurse: He's with another patient.  He'll be along shortly.

Approximately 9:00 am in my delivery room
Me to the nurse: I really need to use the bathroom.
Nurse: I don't know...  You really shouldn't.
Me (still without an epidural): I REALLY NEED TO USE THE BATHROOM!!!
Nurse: Okay.  Just let us know if you need help.

Approximately 9:15 am in the attached bathroom to my delivery room
Nurse (from outside): How are you doing?
Me: I'm fine.

Approximately 9:30 am still in the attached bathroom to my delivery room
Nurse (from outside): How are you doing?
Me: Still fine.

Approximately 9:35 am in my delivery room

Anesthesiologist (to Niles):  Where is the patient?  I'm here for the epidural.

Niles: She's in the bathroom. 

Anesthesiologist: No problem.  I'll be back in five minutes.

  

Approximately 9:40 am still in the attached bathroom to my delivery room
Me (thinking): Either that is a huge poop... or that's the baby's head.  That burning sensation was exactly like what the book said it would feel like when the baby's head...
Niles (from outside): Are you okay?
Me: Not okay this time.
(Niles bursts in to see me standing above the toilet with a baby's head fully clear out of me. )  He then shouts something unintelligible involving the words "Baby" and "toilet." The nurse runs in, pulls the emergency chord they keep in bathrooms for exactly reasons like this, and when I look up next, there's an entire medical team (like 8 or 9 people) in there with me.  Luckily, it's a large bathroom.

Random doctor/nurse: Is there time to get her to the bed?
Doctor/nurse in charge: No!  Set up a sterile area in here!

(I take two steps and Owen literally falls out of me.  Like a good baby, he cries right away.)

My mother-in-law (outside in the room): Is that a baby crying?  That can't be coming from in here.

I made it to the bed to deliver the afterbirth.  Owen was born 3.5 weeks early, healthy, 6 lbs 1 oz and 19 inches long at 9:43 am.  He was not the first baby for the New Year, but he was the only one to be delivered
perilously close to the toilet. 

Lessons learned:
1. The whole due date thing?  Really more of a guidance.  I should have packed those hospital bags earlier.
2. If you want an epidural, you need to make sure you're actually in the room to receive it.
3. If you can suddenly eat three times as much food as previously, you should consider that a potential sign of impending delivery.
4. Don't allow husband to suddenly demonstrate nesting instincts after your water breaks if you want to make it to the hospital in a reasonable amount of time.
5. Most important of all...  That feeling of needing to poop is an actual symptom of delivery.  That's baby's way of letting you know he wants out.  You should not actually go to the bathroom unless you want your baby to be known as the "Toilet Baby" during your entire stay at the hospital.