Random Story Day

If you've heard this story, I'm sorry. If not, it's a great story.
I was just starting my eighth month of pregnancy with Macy when my baby bro. (Landon) was going to the MTC. My entire family was going and everyone was trying to convince me to go. I didn't want to at all...I was the size of a small whale and a human water balloon. But my doctor gave me the go ahead (what does he know?) so I made the trek to Utah. By the time I got there my feet were literally squishing out of my sandals.
The day after we got there we walked (I waddled) all over the Conference Center, which I had never seen, and I got to go to General Conference for the first time ever! It was awesome, but a bit much for someone large and in charge.
The next morning I woke up and much to my surprise, my water had broken. (I was pretty sure it had, but really, I didn't know.) I called my doctor and he said to go to the hospital. I went to this dinky little hospital by my aunt's house and they told me it had not broken, that I was peeing. I was so ticked. "Look people," I wanted to say. "I know what it feels like to pee. This is not pee." But they sent me home. Apparently they think medical school makes them more knowledgeable than me or something.
That afternoon I stood up from watching a movie and-HELLO-my water had definitely broken. I didn't feel it at all, but there was no denying it now. I had already decided that if anything else were to happen, I was going to a real hospital with actual doctors and nurses and not quacks who confuse amniotic fluid with urine. So we went to LDS Hospital where they did one little test and said that my water had definitely broken and I was not leaving Utah without this baby. Um, okay. Not really the souvenir I had planned on bringing home, but, whatever. Who can complain about shaving off two months of pregnancy? Not me. If I got any bigger I'd have to wear a circus tent.
They wanted to keep Macy in as long as possible, at least two days while they pumped me full of steroids to develop her lungs. Little did they know we had all the time in the world. Not only did she not come after two days, but two weeks later I was still trapped in the sterile cave waiting for the darn thing to come out. Um, when your water breaks, doesn't that usually mean the baby's about to come out? Apparently not. For me it meant going insane watching movie after movie, wanting to kill every nurse, doctor and med student who popped in at 5 am to "see how things were going." Um, pretty swell until you arrived. Let me sleep for the love of Pete!!!
Finally after two weeks I had hit 34 weeks and they would induce. It was Easter Sunday, April 15th (tax day). I was so excited I could hardly stand it. I don't know what I was more excited about, having the baby or the prospect of life outside of the hospital. The inducing began. 24 hours later I was watching that stupid screen showing these minor contractions that I couldn't even feel, wondering when the heck things were going to start happening.
Um, doctor, have you ever experienced a baby that just didn't want to come out at all? No? Just mine? Okay, thanks.
At this point I was losing my mind and sooo ready to pop this sucker out. Please, please, I begged, cut me open and take her out!!!
"We really need a medical reason to do a C-Section."
Okay, well, if you don't take this baby out of me, I'm going to strangle you with your stethoscope. How's that for medical?
They did another ultrasound to see what was going on inside and saw that whenever I was having one of these alleged contractions, that her heart rate would falter. So I got my wish. The weird thing was that I wasn't scared for a moment about the heart rate thing. For some reason I just knew it wasn't a problem.
A few hours later I was laying in my birthday suit on a gurney surrounded by at least ten people. At any other time I would have taken a scalpel to my throat in that situation, but they're professionals, right? Besides, I WAS HAVING THIS BABY!!
Bill sat and watched in the mirror as they sliced into me. (Um, ew?) I stared at the blue sheet and tried to guess what they were doing. From the sounds of it, they were building a tree house.
Not too much later, this horribly squished, purple alien-looking face popped up over the blue sheet and disappeared within seconds, whisked off to the NICU. Bill followed.
"Don't worry about me. I'll be here, getting sewn back up."
And then there were drugs. Lots and lots of drugs. I remember opening my eyes and trying to talk to my in-laws and falling back asleep mid-sentence. I remember seeing a picture of my baby all hooked up to monitors and wires and thinking it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Oddly enough, the purple, squished face was already gone, a perfectly beautiful, flesh-toned, round head covered in tons of black hair in its place.
When I finally woke up enough, I went to see her and hold her. It was so unbelievable to me that this was my baby. Because I couldn't see them take her out of me, and suddenly there was this baby laying there that was apparently mine, I had the hardest time putting it together that this was my baby, the baby that just hours before was inside of me. I just took their word for it.
Over the next few days Macy did awesome. She breathed on her own and kept her temperature and all that good stuff within the first two days. The only problem remaining after that was her eating. She was so tiny and they wanted her to eat all of her meals by mouth, whether it be bottle or breast-feeding. It was clear from the get-go which she preferred, (bottle) but even with the bottle she could never finish it all. In order for her to be discharged she had to go 24 hours finishing every meal. After several days they put an NG tube down her nose and into her stomach. What she couldn't finish by bottle she got down the tube. Every time she fell asleep eating and we realized it meant another day there, I would start bawling. My hormones were going crazy and all I wanted was to go home. After two weeks of this (nearing a month in Utah) we were pretty much begging them to let us take her home.
Finally they said, "Well, I suppose we can teach you how to take care of the NG tube and just send her home with the tube. " Gee, what a novel idea. Are you kidding me? We've been hounding you for two weeks and you just now come up with this idea? Seriously, I thought doctors were supposed to be smart. Whatever.
So finally, after what seemed like a year, we got to go home. Of course the minute we got home she started eating like a horse and the tube came out. And then the post-partum depression kicked in, but that's a whole other story.....