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I've told this story a few hundred times already, but if you're one of the few who missed out, this is how it all went down...

Friday, October 22nd 2004, Beverly and I met at 3:40pm at the doctor's office for a simple, regular, weekly checkup. When Beverly arrived, she told me that she thought she had been having contractions all day while at work. Well, this was the first I had heard of it!

We got right in to see the doctor and he determined that things were finally moving along - 2 cm dialated, 95% effaced. That was a huge change from past checkups! He told us he might see us again tomorrow or maybe yet tonight. If only he knew how right he was!

We drove home - taking a bit of a detour due to construction that had traffic backed up for quite some way. The last thing I wanted at this point was for my wife to be stuck in traffic. Beverly mentioned she wanted some food and needed to get gas for her car. By the time we arrived at home, her contractions were just over five minutes apart. (Gee, you'd think she might have been able to wait to get gas!)

Once home, I tried to keep myself busy by gathering all our stuff for the hospital together. By the time I had the suitcase, cameras, and carseat ready, it was 6:00pm. After convincing my wife that we should probably wait to print some thank-you notes off her computer, we were on our way!

We arrived to the hospital at 6:30pm and I went inside to find out where to take her and where I should park and unload. Two contractions and one wrong stop later, we found Labor and Delivery and were immediately placed in a room.

Nurses helped Beverly into bed and connected her to several monitors. She was up to 3 cm now - not a huge change - and her doctor was called.

About fifteen minutes later, the doctor arrived and checked her. Four centimeters. He considered her in "good labor", broke her water, and said he'd be back later once she was farther along. We heard later that the nurse at the desk asked him if he was having a baby tonight or just checking up on someone. He told her he was just checking in - hope he didn't have any other plans for this Friday night!

A few people went about starting to set up the room for the eventual delivery while I stayed with my wife and helped her through the contractions. At one point, she mentioned she felt like she "had to poop". The nurse stopped dead in her tracks with a look on her face I'll never forget and asked, "WHAT?!" "Let me check you again!", she said. EIGHT CENTEMETERS! Holy cow! That was REALLY fast! At this point, things were going a bit crazy in the room. One person was trying to draw blood from Beverly's right arm, another was trying to insert an IV in the left -- both attempting to do so between contractions, which were so close together that neither was having much luck. More people were still setting up the room and running around trying to find out if the doctor had made it out of the hospital or not yet.

By the time the IV was in, things were so far along that my poor wife wasn't even able to get any pain medication. They gave a good show of giving her a tiny bit to try and ease her mind, but by now, it wasn't going to be enough to do anything. The nurse and I were doing our best to keep her from pushing until the doctor arrived. After what seemed like just short of "forever", he entered the room, made a very quick check of my wife, and ran off to change clothes.

A few very long minutes later he returned wearing scrubs. It took only three more contractions (around 8 or 9 pushes) and Rylee was born!

Just a short two hours in the delivery room and Rylee was here! Nothing like waiting until the last minute to go to the hospital, eh? (Numerous nurses told us that if we have another child, we *might* not want to wait so long!)