the labor

wednesday afternoon, melissa says to me, "ooh, i think i'm having contractions." she said this in a very mild-mannered, unconcerned kind of way, so i didn’t think much of it, especially since she then told be to drop her off at a friend's house so they could go out that night.

i dropped melissa off at diana's house and they went out to eat. i figured i'd go out and see war of the worlds with andrew and daniel while she was gone. we went to an 8:00 show, and i turned the sound off on my cel phone to be courteous to my movie-watching neighbors. by the time the movie ended at 10, i had four missed calls from our house. "oh, no," i think. i called home and was told by sarah harris that the contractions were 10 minutes apart and melissa was currently having one in the kitchen.

i booked it home and got home about half an hour later - amazing for manila - at which point the contractions were only five minutes apart, but melissa was still denying she was in labor... right. we threw all the bags in the car and headed off to medical city. during the 20 minute trip, she had four more contractions and three more between parking lot and admitting office.

melissa was admitted just after midnight in much pain and laboring. it took about half an hour before she asked for drugs and promptly fell asleep, sleeping through the last third of her 12 hour labor.