Gideon's 4-day long labor!

My due date was October 26, but I had a feeling I was going to pop early. On October 15, I woke at 3am with strong pains in my stomach. I had round ligament pain since week 12, so I shifted around, thinking it would just go away. At 5am, I wake up DH to tell him I think I'm in labor, since the contractions were stronger and closer together. We gathered our stuff, went to the hospital, and got checked into our room. RN checked; I was only 2-3cm, 75% effaced. Since this was our first, she said it could take minutes to hours to get to 4 centimeters, and then would progress from there. I wanted a natural childbirth, and I was flippin' hungry, so we decided to go back home where I could walk around and eat, and come back when the contractions were closer. Came home, went back to bed, DH went to work and said to call him when it seemed close. My parents live only 8/10 of a mile away, so I went to their house and walked around their living room, kitchen, and dining room, stopping every 3-5 minutes when I had painful contractions that made walking difficult.  When they reached the 2 minute mark around noon, I called DH and went to the hospital for the 2nd time around.  This time, when they hooked me to the monitors, my contractions were spiking more frequently, climbing, and lasting 30seconds to a minute. But nope! RN told me I was not yet in active labor, and to come back when my contractions were 2 minutes apart. (They were! Was she blind?) Back home we went. Ate some pineapple to speed up the labor and at 10 o'clock with my contractions every minute, lasting 40s to 90s at a time, I thought "surely I'm at least a 4 right now!" My friends (2 ER nurses) met us at the check-in and walked us to our room for the 3rd time that day. We stayed for 2 hours... and then were sent home because I still couldn't dilate past the 3 mark!  Went home, slept, and spent Oct 16 in misery with waves of contractions.  I told DH I wasn't going in until my water broke or my mucus plug came out! Oct 17, woke up to find my bloody show, yaaaay, but figured we would have enough time to sit through church before going to the hospital. Pain was so intense, I started crying in the back pew.  DH and I went to the hospital AGAIN. I was admitted, hooked up to monitors. My contractions were coming so frequently, one would start climbing before it even came down from the first one.  Our RN came in with an IV and some tubes and I was certain we would finally get somewhere!  She said she was going to get the anesthesiologist for an epidural, to which I replied that I wanted to have a natural childbirth.  She said, "If you want to have an epidural, we can let you stay and have the baby, but if you're going to do it naturally, there is nothing we can do for you. You will need to go home." I started crying to my DH but we went home. Our next weekly appointment was the 19th, so I told my hubby I was going to stay home until I saw my doc. Imagine my surprise after a miserable Monday when all I could do was lay in bed and pray that my water would break or something, my doc told my RN on Sunday to admit me and break my water!  He said, "Why are you still pregnant? I told your nurse to get you hooked up and we would break your water on Sunday!"  She lied to us!  My DH told him flat out that the RN said she talked to him and said they couldn't do anything for us!  So my doc called and personally admitted me, they started me on pitocin to dilate my cervix and broke my water. They thought my DS was too big to fit through the birthing canal, though, and wondered if I would need a C/S. After 7 hours of Pitocin, I tapped out and got the epidural. I thought my contractions for the days when I was sent home were hellish, but I had no idea what pain was until they put me on Pitocin! After I got the epidural, however, the baby's heartbeat started to decel, and no matter which side I rolled onto (which was hard with my lower half completely numb) his heartbeat wouldn't go back to normal.  They wheeled me into the OR for a C/S and found out my baby was NOT 9 lbs like the doctor thought, he was just wrapped up in his umbilical cord like a parachuter--with the cord around his neck! My doc said there would have been no way I would have been able to push him out without either suffocating him, or having umbilical cord prolapse.  Would have been nice if we had figured all of that out on Oct 15, 16, or 17th! But I have my DS and the battle scars to brag about!