This little girl apparently waits for no one!

So this is the much-too-exciting story of Carter's birth. As I stated before, my plan was to wait to have the baby till Niki came to town on the 21st. Apparently, Carter was not on the same plan. Because she decided to come 13 days BEFORE her due date! That was certainly not in the plan for Drew or I, as evidenced by the fact that we weren't quite finished with all our pre-baby preparations. Oops! Contrary to my plans, I started leaking amniotic fluid yesterday morning at 9, which wasn't ideal since my dad was on his only 1 night business trip since they moved here and he wasn't scheduled to get back till 11:30 the next morning. But the fluid leaking and mild contractions continued throughout the day while we took Ryder to have his portraits taken and Justin to have his hair cut and me to the midwife appointment that I already had scheduled. (Justin, my mom, Ryder and I all ran our errands together since we weren't sure when things were really going to pick up.) At this point we knew that my dad had gotten an earlier flight home and would be home at 1 that morning, so we were doing our best not to walk around too much, hopefully not pushing things along any faster. Which is totally different than Ryder, where Mom and I walked all day to speed up my labor with him. When we went to see our midwife, she checked me to make sure that my water had broken, which of course it totally had and I was 5cm dilated. But things were still going along not too strong, so at 5:30 we drove home, with a stop on the way to pick up dinner and gas. As it turned out, things were picking up by the time we got home, so I only drank a little of my milkshake and then got more serious about laboring. Luckily, things weren't as difficult as last time--with Ryder, my midwife stripped my membranes without telling me, pushing me into VERY intense contractions very early in my labor. This time, it built more slowly, which meant that I was able to stay in control much better than last time. The only downside of that was that apparently I fooled Drew and Mom a little bit into thinking that I wasn't quite as far along as I was. Well, that and the fact that my transition was pretty quick! We started getting ready to go when I felt like I was going into transition, which really was just putting on coats and shoes, and by the time we were in the car and barely out of the neighborhood I felt that I had to push. Since Mom knew the car ride would be intense for me, she took Justin and Ryder in another car while Drew drove me. We had Mom on speaker phone the whole time and the ride was a very fast 20 minutes which consisted of me laying on my side with my legs clamped together saying, "I need to push!" and Mom and Drew saying, "You can't push! Don't push! Just breath!" It was quite intense, to say the very least! When we got to the birth center, Drew had to get me out of the car, since I couldn't move myself. And then he had to walk me in by supporting me from behind, since I as I kept telling Drew, "I can't walk! It's so low! The head's too low!" So we go into the birth center and into the room with the tub, which luckily it was like 30 steps inside the door. As we got into the room, Carla the midwife walked in and literally the seat of my pants dropped 6 inches. Well, I supposed got pushed down 6 inches is a better explanation because the baby's head had come out! That's right, people, the head was out! Carla pulled my pants down, Drew lowered me into a squat and I reached down as the baby's shoulders and chest came out. I got to catch my own baby and pull our beautiful little Carter up onto my chest! It was all very exciting! Maybe a little too exciting, but it all turned out beautifully. And I'm not exaggerating the time frame at all because Mom, Justin and Ryder actually missed the birth. And they got there 3 minutes after we did. It was nuts! We got there at 7:44 and she was born at 7:45. So next time we're going to ignore when the midwife says, "Don't come in till your really huffing and puffing." Next time we're just staying at the birth center if I'm 5cm because I apparently go REALLY fast once thing get kicking. The reason I felt like I had to push in the car is because she was crowning! I'm sure had I been allowed to push then, that she would have been born like 15 minutes earlier, but we managed to hold it off till we got there. I still can't quite process it all, honestly. Like I said, a little more excitement than we wanted maybe, but a great, healthy, wonderful birth. And everyone is very healthy and happy! We spent a little less than 3 hours at the birth center resting a little bit and getting checked out and then we left to come home. It was great to come home right away and be able to rest there. We stayed up till Dad came home at one so he could meet Carter. It was too bad he missed the birth, but unfortunately so did all the people who were here too! What a crazy and great night!