Snapshots of one day in L.A.

It's 6pm. Scott and I are jumpy and nervous. We can't think of anything in particular we'd like to go do.

We decide to get manicures. But when we get there, they're too busy to take us. We decide to go to Solley's next door for deli instead. My belly gets to the door about five minutes before the rest of me.

"I don't want to answer another pregnancy question, ever," I tell Scott, just before the waitress comes up and asks me when I'm due. "Tonight," I tell her, and for the rest of the meal I am peppered with questions from a woman who, I'm fairly sure, is twice as excited about my baby as I've ever been.

When we leave, she asks me what kind of dessert I like and sends me off with a black and white cookie, on the house.

We try for manicures again and again are told that it will be a wait. I tell Scott it's okay, I don't need nice nails for the birth, but I do feel bad that he didn't get his done. "I didn't need it. I just thought it would calm you down," he replies.

I'm not allowed to call the hospital to confirm my induction until 9pm. To pass the time, I watch America's Next Top Model. I am absolutely positive that when I do call, I will be told that an army of laboring women have just taken up all the beds and I'll have to wait to come in until next week -- so why not get absorbed in a little prime time television?

At exactly 8:50, I lose my patience and call. I am told to come in at exactly 10pm.

As we fly around the house, making last minute phone calls and double-checking hospital bags, I try to catch the final segment to find out who is no longer in the running towards becoming America's Next Top Model. It turns out to be Lulu, which is good because she was really mean to Bianca and also had a nasty boob tattoo.

Our ride to the hospital is surreal. Sunset Boulevard is hopping and so is La Cienega. I start thinking back to only a year or two ago, when I was going out three or four nights a week. We shake our heads at two drunk guys wearing black shirts, trying to jaywalk across the street. So irresponsible!

I expect to wait a long time once we arrive at the hospital. But instead, everything rushes way too quickly. We're crammed into the tiniest room possible and Scott has to fit his body into a chair too narrow for him.

A doctor -- not my doctor, but one in her practice -- comes to check me. They're supposed to put in a Foley catheter to help me dilate, to get me ready for the Pitocin. "She doesn't need the Foley," he pronounces. "She's already 2-3 centimeters dilated. Let's go right to the Pit." My first thought is, "this should shorten labor by a few hours. Good."

I listen to a couple of Adam Carolla podcasts, and watch some bad late night television. Every time I have to pee, which seems like every twenty minutes, Scott has to unhook the fetal monitor and help me across the room with all my IV tubes and bags hanging everywhere. This alone is embarrassing enough that I kind of just want to get the epidural already.

I get the epidural around 4:30am. I'm only 4 cm at this point, but I'm also a giant wuss. I explain this to the anesthesiologist. He's young and handsome and his name is Dr. Yang. He understands. Scott and I try to think of friends we have who we could set up with Dr. Yang because this guy is a serious catch.

I'm still able to feel contractions, and it makes me nervous. The question I want someone to answer is, Is this normal? No, I'm not in too much pain. I'm just concerned. Is it normal that I can still feel contractions, that they're still uncomfortable? Does that mean as they get worse, my pain will get worse -- that the epidural hasn't taken effect correctly? This is what I try to ask, but what happens is that Dr. Yang comes back, thinks I'm saying I need more painkillers, and ups my medication. Suddenly I am completely, utterly deadened. This annoys me because I totally COULD have handled the pain and now I'm that girl who demanded the super-powered ultra-extreme epidural and yes I'm a wuss, but not THAT much of a wuss.

Our nurse is gruff and Canadian. This makes no sense to me. I thought all Canadians were really nice?

I'm being wheeled into the delivery room because the doctor is on her way. It's already early morning, 7am. How did that happen?

I am fully dilated -- after three hours? Wow. Apparently it's unusual for things to move this quickly. We don't know what to do. The doctor leaves to deliver another baby, and we realize for the first time that this baby might come a whole lot quicker than we'd anticipated. None of our family is scheduled to arrive until after lunch. Scott starts making phone calls. We're trying to stay calm. No wait -- I'm not trying. I AM calm. Very calm. Hell, I can't feel a thing!

Strike that. I'm really cold. Shivering a lot. When is the doctor coming back?

She's back! And gruff Canadian nurse has been replaced by awesome Jamaican nurse. She and my doctor ask me to push. I do, as hard as I can, and they look concerned. They need to wait for the baby to move down, and for my epidural to wear off enough for me to aid in pushing. They comically lift my legs, which fall over of their own accord. "She's really numb," Jamaican nurse says, amused. DAMN IT, DR. YANG.

The doctor is gone, will be back in two hours, and awesome Jamaican nurse is leaning over me. She counsels me to push on my own with each contraction, to help move the baby down while we wait for the doctor. It's like she's letting me in on some guilty little nurse secret.

Time passes. It's really cold.

I joke about the little hoity toity touches I can see all around us that remind me Cedars is the favorite birthing hospital of really, really rich people everywhere. I order Scott to take pictures of the sink in the corner, which isn't standard issue stainless steel, but rather one of those aesthetically pleasing stone bowls that stand separate from the faucet. I also really want him to take a picture of the popsicle they have given me to suck on, which is actually an imported Italian strawberry sorbetto. It strikes me as hilarious that the ingredients listed on the side of the wrapped are in Italian.

I ask Scott to turn on the television. Even though there's no sound, it's a distraction. We find a station that seems to be nothing but beautiful nature images: flowers floating on a lake, an oak tree at the top of a misty hill. "How nice," I think. "The hospital has a labor channel."

After two hours, the doctor comes back and checks me again. I'm still not ready. She tells me she's going to the office and will come back at eleven. That gives me another two hours.

I fret, thinking about everyone arriving at the hospital already expecting the baby to have arrived. What if they get impatient sitting in the waiting room together? What if they leave? Will they be mad that we called them all at 7am to tell them the baby was on her way when she really wasn't?

I'm noticing a definite change. I can feel more. Things are finally happening.

At 11am exactly, I have a total classic birthing moment: I turn to the nurse and say, "I think I need to push." And suddenly the doctor is back in the room and we are getting ready to push. "I think this baby will come in the next hour," the nurse informs me. I want to cheer!

Being on my back isn't working.

I'm turned over on my side.

I'm turned over on my back. "Did you remember to take a picture of of the Italian popsicle?" I ask Scott as one point. He tells me he forgot, which annoys me. My job is to push a child out of my womb. His is to take a picture of a popsicle. I'm temporarily very disappointed in my husband.

We use something called a squat bar. We take it away.

Scott and the nurse wait in silence, watching the contraction monitor.

I realize I can see the monitor in a reflection from the mirror across the room and watch as well.

The doctor returns. I can tell from her concern that it's been too long. Progress is not being made.

I can feel the tension in the room. Above me, the doctor, the nurse and my husband all stare intently at the monitor, waiting for the next contraction, then the one after that.

I study the images on the television. An image of a maple leaf is replaced by a bible verse and suddenly I am struck by the realization that for the last two hours, I have not been watching the labor channel -- I'm watching the God channel. And I don't even care.

Clear snapshots fade into a blur here as the last hour ticks down. Scary words and phrases are flung about. Words like vacuum, c-section, episiotomy, you need to try harder. It's this last one that really gets me. Nobody gets to tell me I didn't try hard enough. I try harder.

The ceiling of the room is white. If I weren't an athiest, I'd be praying. But instead, I'm just talking to myself. Try harder. Try harder. Try harder.

"It's her stupid shoulders," I say, frustrated after another failed push. My doctor gets angry. "Don't talk like that. Not in my delivery room," she snaps at me. I'm not too distracted to feel guilty. I just called my daughter's shoulders stupid. I'm going to be a bad mother!

What's going on? When did all these people come in?

The baby is here! She's here! Hi, baby! I'm sorry I called your shoulders stupid. They're beautiful. And...ugh, kind of messy.

She cries right away.

I have never, ever seen Scott's eyes so wide in my life.

It's 2pm and I have a baby. Her name is Sadie.

I hold her on my chest. For a long time. This sounded like a good idea when they told us about it on the hospital tour, but now everyone's gone and I'm kind of really wishing they would just wheel me to recovery already. The room is really, really, really cold.

Scott walks in the door with a chicken salad sandwich from Starbucks and a giant Coke. He offers me water, but the Coke is what I want. It is the best thing I have ever tasted.

The sandwich has cranberries in it. Scott wonders why Starbucks needs to ruin a perfectly good chicken salad sandwich with cranberries.

Now I'm being wheeled down a long, long hallway towards my room. In this snapshot, I'm not sure if the baby is in my arms or if someone is carrying her next to me. All I know is that a group of people is standing just beyond a set of automatic double doors. They aren't my people -- they're waiting for someone else. Another mom is being wheeled in behind me. But I get there first, and the people greet me as if all along, it's me they have been waiting for. They cheer for me. They wear huge smiles and congratulate me and tell me my daughter is beautiful.

In the recovery room, my family files in. Everyone got there in time! Their faces are filled with happiness. I have been holding it together pretty well this entire time, but when my dad walks in I can barely look at him because I know if I do I will burst into tears.

It's funny, the lasting impressions you leave with after an experience like this. They're small and personal, rather than large and monumental. A nurse with a Jamaican accent, the God Channel, a chicken salad sandwich with cranberries, and a little girl who was almost named for a great American scientist, but wound up with a name cobbled together from the letters of the names of her grandparents -- made up of parts of us all.