Well, that went a little differently. After 5 hours of contractions that were still quite “intense,” I found that I was still at 2 centimeters. With Annette’s voice in the back of my mind, “1 centimeter per hour,” I decided to let go of all my resolutions. I wasn’t comfortable with having to puff for at least another 8 hours and then push. I wanted an epidural. Since I knew stories where an epidural sometimes took quite a while to put in, I asked for it firmly (even though I was a little afraid of it before delivery). 10 minutes later I was picked up and another 10 minutes later I was back in the delivery room, sedated and all. What a relief. The sting was not too bad. During a contraction, the doctors gave me space to catch it first before proceeding with the shot, and I was amazed at how quickly I became a little “me” again after the shot. The epidural allowed me to relax and even nod off at times. At 5 p.m. dinner was brought and the changing of the guard came. The midwife who was on evening duty came to introduce herself and a nurse. After all, they were going to supervise my delivery sometime that evening/night. Since it had been a while since my dilation had been checked, she did so right away. What transpired? I had full dilation, a dilated cervix and was even allowed to push! Huh? This was shifting gears for a while! Between the epidural and being allowed to push, there was only 2.5 hours. Whereas before it seemed to take a very long time, now suddenly my labor went very fast. The epidural was turned off and with the midwife’s guidance, despite the diminished sensation, I managed to push well. Just before the end I cut in. The midwife took me through this during labor and prepared me for this. This was not too bad for me. After 45 minutes of pushing, our daughter was born at 6:32 pm. How unreal!