Quinn's birth story part 1

Now that Quinn is 3 months old I'm finally going to write about her birth story. Her due date was 11/29/2012.
I had been getting really antsy for this baby to arrive. My dear mother said that everyone in our family has their baby early so that's what I was anticipating. She predicted I'd have the baby a week early. I was waiting on pins and needles for the baby to come. I woke up one night with what felt like a charlie horse in my belly. Okay this is it I thought, but then nothing else happened. For the next week I had cramping and pain off and on and I figured I was having Braxton Hicks contractions. 
11/27/12 the clinic where I work merged with the hospital so we had a benefits meeting I dragged Barlow to it so we could make the right choice on what benefits to enroll in. The meeting was at 3pm and I had patients scheduled until 2:45 which means they arrived at 2:50 needless to day I was sort of stressed because I ended up being late. During the meeting I started having cramping off and on but it was only ever 30 min and it was still irregular.

We went home after the meeting and the cramping continued. I got out my trusted iphone contraction timer and they were still ~ 20-30 min apart. I told Barlow and we continued to time them. They were uncomforable but not really painful. They only lasted a few seconds. I walked around a lot  because that's what they said to do in our birthing class. I thought ok maybe labor is finally starting. They had taught us that you could be at home for a long time before you need to go to the hospital and I really didn't want to get there and then have to turn around and go home. We finished packing our bags for the hospital. I was starving and I knew that if I went into labor I wouldn't get to eat for a while, so Barlow and I went to Papa Murphy's and got our favorite artichoke chicken garlic pizza around 7 or 8 pm.  Wow I regretted that later.
The contractions started to last longer and were closer together but more like 5 min then 7 min. Our OB said to go in when they were 5 min apart and lasting for one min. Finally I was really uncomfortable during the contractions and they were still 5-7 min so I decided yes we would go in and see how things were.
We drove to the hospital we went in through the ED since it was after hours. I could still walk but I had to deep breath through the contractions. We got into the waiting room and I leaned over a chair to get through a contraction.
She looked over at me and said, "Oh... come over and we'll get you registered." They called up to OB and we told them how far apart the contractions were. It was so hard to sit still while we registered. It really didn't take long only 3-4 min but it felt like forever. We each got a hospital bracelet.  Finally they rolled a wheel chair over and I was relieved I didn't have to walk at that moment. My OB happened to be the MD on call, what luck!
I expected them to take me to a triage room for a check but they rolled me right into a patient room. They had me put on a hospital gown and hooked me up to monitors. The contractions were pretty regular at ever 5 min now. I'm not sure how long they were lasting but it was long enough. I was able to walk around a little and move after they checked me on the monitors. Then they came in and asked me a bazillion questions. I tried to be super nice since I knew I'd be depending on these people a lot. I was only at ~ 1 cm. No one ever told me being "checked" would hurt so stinking bad and especially when you have a contraction in the middle of it. I was still able to deep breath at this time but I was starting to get scared. If it was hurting this bad and I was only just barely dilated I started panicking thinking of the pain that was to come.
They told me when I was at a 2 I could have an IV with pain medication. I just focused on surviving until 2 cm then I would get some relief. I was grateful when I finally got the IV with some fentanyl. It wasn't the sweet relief I was hoping for.
They told me when I was at a 3 I could have a epidural if I wanted. Yes please!