at the hospital: 6cm to the finish line

Boy was she wrong about that. After the doctor left, my contraction quickly began to escalate. They were coming at about 3 minutes apart, but the pain was unimaginable. I could hardly relax between contractions and my whole body shook wildly with each. I told Pat to get the nurse because it was just getting so bad and I didn't know how to handle the pain. When she got to the room, she saw the monitor and saw that I was in pain. Since I was shaking so much, she asked if I wanted more epidural where I eagerly responded yes.
After the epidural at 5cm, the strength of contraction escalated pretty quickly. I can't remember that second epidural giving me any relief at all. The nurse wanted to check to see how much I was dialated but I told her I couldn't let her do that because I was hurting so much. She was an experienced nurse and was very calm through my very bitchy attitude. She told me that I had to let her check me "for the baby". I guess that struck a chord with me so I let her examine me. She told me that I was 7 to 8cm dialated. This was unexpected because I went from 5 cm to 8cm in a very short time. Each contraction is suppose to last anywhere between a minute to 90 seconds. At this point, the monitor showed that my contraction was very strong and lasted for what seemed like eternity. When I saw the monitor, the contraction began, escalated, fluctuated, but it never came down. I was in tears and Pat stared at the monitor in disbelief. This is definitely not what the lamaze class taught us.
At this point, the nurse called that doctor to come back because I was ready. After the phone call, the nurse examined me and I was 9 cm dialated. I knew from the lamaze class that I was not suppose to push until 10cm. So for a few dialation, I tried to ease the pain by blowing out air from my mouth instead of pushing. Finally, I couldn't bare anymore and the need to push was too great. I asked the nurse if I can start pushing now and she gave me an OK. This gave me great relief and I started to push. Each contraction was now a minute apart and a minute long. But after pushing for a minute I was able to relax completely to began pushing again. At first, I was screaming when I pushed but the nurse told me that that was not the way to do it. I was suppose to hold my lips together and push.
The doctor came back pretty quickly as I was pushing. She seemed to be saying that she can feel the baby's head. Pat was peaking to see if he can see but I don't think he saw anything at this point. I continued pushing until everyone could see the baby's head. The nurse positioned a big mirror so that I could see but with all the blood and other stuff down there, no, I could not see the baby's head.
The pressure was really great by this point. The baby's body was pushing down on my bladder, and I felt like I had to go to the bathroom. This lasted for about 45 minutes or so. It felt like the baby was stalled at the same position and couldn't come out. I was lying down on my back at first, but we decided to look sideways to see if it works. I also went on my knees and pushed, but to me nothing seemed to be changing the position of the baby and the pressure was unbarable.
At the end, I decided to go on my right side and push. Maybe because I've been pushing for so long but for some reason, this worked. I felt the baby's head coming out. Even though it was still painful, this was a big relief for me because I felt progress. I heard Pat telling me to keep push and not to give up. He told me that I'm almost there, so I kept pushing. The pain and the pressure were so great at this point that I bit down hard into the bed rail. Although I did not see what was going on, I felt that the baby's head was out. And soon, once his shoulders were out, the rest of the body slid out quickly.
And there he was. My precious little Terran. The nurse cleaned out stuff from his nose and mouth. He started to cry and was handed to me to hold. At this point, I just couldn't believe that I had squeezed this thing out of my body. I couldn't believe that something so beautiful was growing inside my body all these months. Terran is a sign of perfection. He has everything that a male body should have and I was amazed by nature's awesome design, process, and creation.