Labor Day!

Found this meme for Labor day & Moms, and I love a good birth story, so I'm playing along:

How long were you in labor?
About 6 hours of active labor, around 30 minutes of pushing.

How did you know you were in labor?
I was having more contractions when I went in for my appointment 2 days before my due date. I'd had tons of contractions for the past week or two and even been in to the hospital once, thought the contractions stopped as soon as we got there. They were nice habit forming contractions every couple of evenings that would get as close together as 2 minutes for 3-4 hours, then they'd peeter off and stop. I really wasn't in the mood for doing that again, and the Doctor asked me if I wanted my water broken, so I took him up on it since I was already having contractions. He broke my water about 11am. Of course they quit. So I got dressed again and took a walk around the maternaty ward. The nurses wanted to know if I needed directions, help, what was I doing. I told them I was having a baby. I ate some lunch. I went to my room once the contractions started again and while they were little Andy and I played Pocket Tanks for a while. It's really the only time that I've ever done well at that game. Sometime between 1 and 2 I couldn't concentrate on the game anymore. Not long after that I got in the shower. I threw up my lunch. (Oddly enough, I'm still glad that I ate it.) After a while I headed down to the hot tub and I stayed there until it was time to deliver. The hot tub wasn't really set up for doing water births, so I went back to my room, even though I really liked the water and wanted to stay. Monkey was born at 7:42pm, I think. I'd have to check the minutes to be absolutely sure and I'm not at home right now

Where did you deliver?
In a hospital. It was nice.

Drugs?
Nope. I used Hypnobirthing. It worked beautifully. It wasn't so bad. I'd rather give birth than, say, get a cavitiy filled. Any day of the week!

C-section?
Nope. Completely uncomplicated birth.

Who delivered?
The doctor did. Although he almost missed the big moment. The nurses were getting pretty excited for a while there: the doctor on call was down the hall delivering another baby and my doctor wasn't there yet and I wouldn't stop pushing. I didn't want to stop pushing. I was having a BABY, and if they couldn't find a doctor to stand down there that wasn't my problem at that point.

**If you want to play along with this meme, just cut and paste the questions into your own blog, then head on over to Rocks in my Dryer to link up.