Labor and Delivery

Well it all started Saturday evening...I was very tired and frustrated that contractions still hadnt started so I decided to give my favorite pal, castor oil, one more try. So at 8pm I choked down 4 tablespoons of castor oil with some soda and then went to bed praying that this would be the night.
At 2:00 am I woke with what I assumed were gas cramps and started my voyage to the bathroom. For an hour I got increasingly more uncomfortable, still assuming it was just very painful gas, and regretting the oil....then I realized that the gas pain was not gas, it was contractions because I could not walk, or breath. So at approximately 3:15 am I fell onto my side of the bed in agony and woke Jeff to tell him I needed to go to the hospital cause I was in labor. We then made it out to the livingroom to wake my Mom to give her the good news. While in the livingroom I was practically paralized on the floor with contractions coming every 2-3 minutes. After finally getting on some shoes and a sweater, and Jeff getting the car packed we were on our way.
We got to the hospital around 4am where they checked me at 5cm and 100% effaced. I decided against an epidural since my nurse informed me that it would be atleast two hours before I could even be prepped for one. All the doctors, even anesthesiologists are on call from home, not from another floor or ward. So we preceded with the contractions. It was very strange because during the contractions I was in paralyzing agony, but in between them I was perfectly normal and comfortable.
After about 45 minutes I received my IV, which had to be placed during contractions because at this point there were only about 45 sec to a min a part and the nurse was taking her time finding the vein. At 5:30 I started having CRAZY painful contractions and was making my nurse check me after each one because it literally felt like during the contraction I was going to just give birth. My nurse was very sweet and although she thought I was exagerating a bit, she checked me anyway. At this point I was 7cm and she figured I still had a good while before I would deliver, but she stayed close by. Thankfully so, because after a few minutes I started to have the most extreme pain I have ever felt and was really praying I had somehow received an epidural, Jeff and the nurse were being so great and coaching my breathing when all of a sudden I felt Olivias head move into the birth canal......I started screaming "shes coming, shes coming" the nurse came running over saying back "no shes not" and as she reached to check me she corrected herself saying "yes, she is but Erin, DO NOT PUSH!!!!!!" The room became a circus with our nurse calling for an ER doctor, yelling for me not to push, and banging on the wall for the other nurse to hurry in because Olivia was coming without the aid of a doctor.
She came back to my bed still begging me not to push, but my body was doing all the work despite my desperate effort to keep her in. Then, Jeff says she reached down and just guided her out.
Olivia was born, breathing, cord cut and on the infant warming table before a doctor ever made it to our room. She was born at 6:02 am giving us just 4 hours from my first "gas pain" here at the house. Now I call that a speedy delivery.
For those pregnant mommies out there, if you are going to make the choice to use an alternate form of induction, beware of the consequences and don't under estimate the power of the female body.