Samuel's Arrival!! (Part 1)

WARNING: This IS a birth story... if you don't want details, don't read this!

    Since this may be one of the only opportunities I have for a while to write down some details of the special day that Samuel arrived, I thought I'd seize it and see what I can actually get written.  Haha!
    Other than a few false alarms in the weeks before he was actually born, my contractions started back up on Wednesday night after I got home from church.  They stayed close and fairly consistent for an hour or two, but since I could tell that he still wasn't low enough (and I didn't think my pain was quite severe enough), I waited it out.  Sure enough, the contractions leveled and faded out by the time I went to bed that night. I took a Tylenol PM just to make sure I slept the night through.
    As John was getting ready for work the next morning, I had a couple of contractions - close enough together for me to give him a warning to stay by his phone through the morning.  Being alert from timing them, I stayed up and decided to get some cleaning done before Abigail woke up... especially on the off-chance that today was going to be it!  So after picking up a little, dusting, and swiffering, Abigail was ready for breakfast.  I continued cleaning (organizing, vacuuming and steam-mopping) while Abigail played happily until lunch-time.  (This may sound like a long time, but the girl tends to sleep later than most kids her age and she takes forever to eat - she gets that from me - so by the time she starts playing, her daddy gets home within an hour or two after that for lunch!)
    All through the morning, I watched the clock.  As with Abigail, my contractions weren't staying consistent enough to go in... though their intensity was definitely building.  I only had one or two during lunch so John went back to work - leaving me with strict instructions to call if anything changed.  Pretty much the moment he walked out the door, I had another contraction far more intense than before.  I breathed through it and managed to start cleaning Abigail and her mess from lunch.  While doing this, I had another... not long after that, another.  I finally started writing them down.  They weren't consistently close enough together yet to go in, but, thankfully, the nurse from my doctor's office called in the midst of me writing the previous three contractions down.  I told her what was going on.  At first, she told me to wait it out... then I had a contraction while I was on the phone with her and told her how many I'd had in the last 25 minutes.  She told me to go ahead and come in.  My doctor had already left for the day, but she said she'd try to get a hold of her to let her know what was going on.
    I called John.  Poor guy hadn't been back at work very long... but he turned around came right back.  We loaded up and headed to Fort Smith about 2:30 pm - me, all the while, hoping this wasn't another false alarm (in other words, a massive waste of everyone's time).