Short version: I was in labour for 18 hours and pushed for 25 minutes. Lydia Eleanor was born on March 20 at 11:09. She was born at 39w1d just like DS, and on Palm Sunday like I was. She was 6lbs 10oz and has a head of dark hair!
Long version: At 37w5d my doctor stripped my membranes because she thought I was ready and she wanted to deliver DD before she went away. I started having contractions and they got down to 7 minutes apart, but then they got farther apart again. I had irregular, painful contractions for 8 days. At 38w6d (Friday), I had an appointment with a different doctor, and he stripped my membranes again because he thought I was ready. I had contractions all day and went to bed at 9:30 because I was so worn out. By the time I woke up on Saturday, the contractions were completely gone and I gave up on everything. We went for lunch and a walk with my parents, then DS had a nap and DH and I had sex and then a nap. When I stood up after our nap, I felt a gush of water and freaked out. I called the hospital and they said to take my time, but to come in to be checked out. Around this time I also started having contractions around 10 minutes apart. My parents came to watch DS, and DH and I went to the hospital after showering and eating dinner.
At the hospital, the nurse checked me and I was at 5cm. With DS, it took me 10.5 hours to get from 5cm to 10cm, so I wasn't super hopeful. DH and I basically just hung out all night, kind of bored, while I had contractions every ten minutes. It took me 2.5 hours to get to 6cm, but then only 2 hours to get to 8cm. At this point it was 1am and I was really tired, so we spent the next two hours walking the halls and squatting in the hopes of speeding things along. At 3am I was checked again and I was still at 8cm. They started talking about inducing in the morning if I didn't progress more, which freaked me out. I was trying to avoid an IV altogether, since this time I was GBS-. At 7am I was finally at 9cm, but the contractions were still irregular. By 9am I was somehow back down to 8cm, which I didn't even know was possible.
The doctor came to check on me around 9:30, and he found a small section of membranes that hadn't broken, so he broke that. My contractions went from every ten minutes and manageable to every two minutes and awful. By 10:15 I was begging to push, but the nurse kept telling me to wait because my cervix had been so slow. She finally checked me and I still had a small ridge of cervix left, so she tried to hold it down while I pushed a little, which didn't work. After resting for a little while, she let me start pushing again. For some reason, pushing this time was agonizing. It only took 25 minutes as opposed to 1.5 hours with DS, but I felt like I could not do it. Each push was torture, and I couldn't stop my legs from shaking which made it even harder. I was also pooping all over the bed, haha. So gross. When her head finally started coming out, they made me stop to calm down and it was so painful. When her head was almost out, they told me to stop pushing and cough. I gave one half-hearted cough and the doctor yelled "cough more! Harder! Cough out your baby!" It was incredibly weird, but it worked! Her head and shoulders came out via fake coughing. I got to do skin to skin right away, and she immediately started rooting around to nurse.
She is tiny and so perfect. She has even more hair than DS did, and it seems darker. She was very chill for the first 12ish hours, then she started getting a little fussier. She is an amazing nurser, but that's all she wants to do. She's taken a soother fairly well, which I'm thankful for. Also, the nurse told me that when she was checking her out, she rolled over twice! She's since done it a few times at home. It's kind of terrifying, haha. Anyway, that was very long, but she's here and we love her and even DS is coming around.