Fast labor, caul birth

I had daydreamt of swinging a giggling baby girl on a swing in December 2015. The dream of becoming a mother became real soon after that. We never wanted to find out our baby’s gender so left that as a surprise until my due date, September 15, 2016.
Aside from morning sickness, migraine headaches, and occasional bouts of higher than normal blood pressure, I had an easy pregnancy. The smell of blooming daphne calmed my morning sickness and I fell in love with the tiny clusters of pink and white flowers even more. I kept exercising throughout my pregnancy, even after rolling my ankle and falling while running – a walking boot didn’t keep me down.
On August 29, I woke up and went to the bathroom and found my mucous plug in the toilet when I stood up. I called my midwives’ office and they told me it was really nothing to worry about- I could have weeks to go. So, I went about my day, wished my brother a happy birthday and learned that one of my best friends had delivered her son that morning. I went to work and interviewed for a permanent role I had been doing on an interim basis for the past five months. A physician who I worked with at one point asked me if I was okay – which seemed odd to me. Of course I was okay – I was just spending four hours in interviews.
I went on with my day, facilitated a meeting, walked to my car and drove home in rush hour. My husband had made us dinner but I wasn’t feeling well so I alternated between the couch and the dinner table.
Not long after, I started having contractions. We timed them but they were never regular. I was in increasing pain so eventually we figured out a plan for the dog and headed to the hospital. We had to park and enter through the emergency department and walk through to the back for the birthing center. My midwife checked me and told me that I was fully dilated and effaced. I was shocked – it had been about two hours since I even noticed something was going on with me, and by no means was I even ready to have a baby – the years of longing and months of preparation had not readied me for a baby at 37.5 weeks. My husband didn’t even have his hospital bag packed that day. I took a moment to shift my mind to what this meant – of course, I’d always thought my first child would arrive late and that I’d be in labor for hours. About 45 minutes later, our daughter arrived, with about half of her tiny body in caul. She was so small, but from the moment we saw her, we knew she would be a fierce little thing. She ended up being identified as small for gestational age (though right on the cutoff line) so plenty of monitoring and the stress of feeding such a tiny and fragile being ensued for weeks.
The little girl on the swing I’d dreamt of nearly nine months earlier arrived and forever changed us.