Baby M was born at 3:20 a.m. December 27.
She is 9 pounds even. 20 inches long. Short wispy brown hair, 10 fingers and 10 toes, nice pink coloring. Apgar scores were 9 and 9 if you care about such things.

Birth story--rated "moderate" for the squeamish:

YES those days of prelabor (especially yesterday) were doing something--in fact, they were doing just about everything. But boy was it a photo finish. As I mentioned in comments from a previous entry, yesterday morning I had seven great hours of strong contractions before things screeched to a halt. Tried some homeopathic stuff in the afternoon then finally gave up. Went out with R for a good dinner and went to bed 10:30ish.

At 1 a.m. (12 full hours after labor stalled) I woke up from a dead sleep with a contraction the force of a freight train. A couple of them came five or so minutes apart, but by 1:20 they were on top of each other. I woke up R and we called the doula and told her to come over. That's when I posted the pre-written blog.

It quickly became apparent that no, we would need to hightail it to the hospital and have doula meet us there. R was great as chauffer, driving, er, as one with authority. Got there 2:15, entered through ER and hopped the wheelchair for the long corridor and elevator ride to labor and delivery. I was contracting on hands and knees in the waiting area, bracing myself on the wheelchair, while they were asking me to sign several forms. I'm pretty sure I bought somebody's house in the process.

The entire way to the hospital I was thinking, these are classic transition sensations. The inescapable fight-or-flight stuff that comes right at the end. At least that is what I hoped: at 2:45 the Janeane Garofalo midwife checked me, and if she'd told me I was only 6 or 7 cm I think I would have perished right there on the spot. Instead she spoke those magic words: You Are Fully Dilated.

My bag of waters had still not broken. Thank God. If my waters had gone of their own accord during the mad scramble to the hospital I probably would have had my baby on the side of the road. So Janeane Garofalo broke my water and I pushed out the babe in 15 minutes with a minimum of trauma. She gave a quick cry, two sneezes, and the rest is history. (Name, pics and other trivia will be posted to the private section later this evening.)

Total time from a sound sleep to a birthed babe: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

I feel fantastic. As crazy-making as the last two weeks have been, I have SO much more energy right now than I did after C's 25-hour unmedicated adventure. That was a marathon. This was a slow climb up Everest.

Thanks for all your good wishes. Assuming all remains well, we will go home tomorrow.