Sunday
So literally the night before my baby was born, I wanted to get a 36 week picture. I was at 36 weeks and 1 day. I had taken a late shower that Sunday and even thought if I have my baby tonight, at least my hair will look nice - never thinking it would actually be true! Anyway, it was already dark outside so Logan got some with me in the nursery. Look at that bump!
2:00am
We went to bed and several hours later at almost exactly 2:00am I got up because it felt like I had to pee really, really bad. I went to the bathroom and when I was done, I stood up but before I even got my pants up there was a whoosh of fluid that fell into the toilet! I was a little shocked but knew exactly what it was right away. My water had broke.
I put on a pad and walked over to where Logan was peacefully sleeping in bed. I woke him and said "my water broke" to which he replied "are you serious?!". I told him I was going to call he Dr and he needed to help me pack. Logan got right up and got to work.
Normally they would let women labor at home longer but because I was only 36 weeks they wanted me to come in to check.
When we got into the car, I think this was when it started to really sink in for Logan. I could tell he really felt an urgency to get me to the hospital (he drove there pretty fast). In the car my contractions also slowed down.
4:30am
We walked into the hospital at about 4:30am. They took me into triage and hooked me up to the monitors. While we waited, Logan and me filled out my birth plan. haha. We had actually planned on doing it that night for FHE.
They did an exam and then brought in a sonogram to check to see if my water had broke. The nurse had the wand on my stomach for about 2 seconds and said, yes it is.
5:39am
The Doctor came in and said that because my water had broke it there was more risk to try and stop him from coming then to just have him. She said "you are not going home without a baby". She checked my cervix and I was at one cm dilated. They admitted me and wheeled me in to a delivery room. I was really happy that I got an ocean view room.
I got my IV put in. I was supposed to go in the next day for my 36 week check up and to finish my labs but that obviously wasn't happening so they error on the side of caution and gave me penicillin as if I had tested positive for the Beta Strep B test. I really hated how the penicillin made my hand with the IV in it hurt.
I had tried eating some muffins before getting to the hospital but eating that early in the morning made me feel kinda sick so I didn't get much down. By the early morning I was so hungry! I asked if I could eat anything. They usually don't let you but were nice enough to bring me "breakfast". It consisted of broth, tea, jello and two juice boxes. Not much but I was so grateful for it!
A lot of my morning was also spent walking to the bathroom. I felt like I constantly had to pee and going really helped with the pressure and helped me feel better. Pretty much every time that the nurse or corpsman came in to check on me I had them unhook me from the monitors, take off my pressure cuff and let me walk to the bathroom with my IV stand and cords.
Another thing we did that morning was watch the contractions monitor. It is the line on the right side. Each peak is a contraction (the parts where it goes crazy up and down is when I change positions in bed). It took me a long time to get regular contractions.
.tiff)
9:53am
I found out that for me the way that I was able to handle the pain was to be in a "non" state as much as possible. Early on, one of the nurses said to "surrender to the contractions" and somehow that made sense to me and helped a lot. Most of the day I just spent laying in the bed. I was surprised I didn't want anything to distract me and I didn't really sleep much. I just chilled. When I was in that state I really didn't feel that many contractions. Logan hung out by me for a while but I didn't really need him at this point so I let him watch 24 on his laptop for several hours.
At this point I was still doing really well with the contractions. Thats why I was shocked when they came to check me that I had gone from 1 to 4 cm dilated 60-70% effaced. The nurse said that was a great amount of progress in 4 hours and that usually this first part was the longest.
It wasn't until the later that afternoon did I start to feel uncomfortable with the contractions because they would wake me from my non state. I started to ask about an epidural. I had to get interviewed by the anesthesiologist to see if I was a good candidate and sign some paper work saying I understood the risks.
I still was handling the pain pretty well but they told me that there were now two other girls that were wanting epidurals so if I didn't want to wait, I should get mine now.
I sat on the edge of the bed and they had Logan sit on a stool right in front of me where my feet rested on his legs. They said the numbing shot would be the worst part. It wasn't for me though. I started getting lots of sharp pain the the mid right side of my back. I have to admit it freaked me out and really hurt. It was hurting so bad the guy gave me another numbing shot. He finished and then the pain finally started to go away once they hooked it up to the IV.
Later I asked the anesthesiologist if they usually have to do more than one numbing shot and he said not often, maybe one in 20. He said it probably was because I was a redhead. He said he did hit a vein that made me bleed pretty bad but the pain was probably from a muscle spasm. Either way, I was still really glad I got the epidural because it kept me from feeling the contractions for a long time.
Logan was teasing me about the hair net I had to put on while they put in the epidural so I put it on him and made him get a pic too.
They checked me again and at this point. I joked that I wanted to be 8 cm so I could have this baby before dinner. I had only gotten to 5 cm dilated so they said in a few hours they would put me on Pitocin.
With the epidural in and not being able to feel any more pain I was pretty happy the rest of the afternoon. I watched Parks and Recreation and The Big Bang Theory on TV, put on my makeup and took a nap.
I thought it was funny that once the epidural took away the contraction pain, my IV with the Penicillin was what hurt the most. The nurse ran some saline solution through it to help it feel better.
3:55pm
First dose of Pitocin. Throughout the day they upped my dosage three times. The first two I never felt a thing. We kept hanging out and I tried to get some sleep because I knew I would need it later.
6:19pm
The chair you see Logan in reclines into a bed. I got in it once and it was the most uncomfortable thing ever. I feel like they could do better to help the dads feel more comfortable but Logan never complained.
As night fell, we watched a beautiful sunset.
7:30pm
I got my third dose of Pitocin and not too long after that, I slowly started to feel contractions again for the first time. It started off slowly like the first contractions I felt as I went into labor and they continued to get worse.
8:22pm
They told me when I got there that because my water had broke, it was really easy for me to get an infection so they didn't check my cervix very often. My contractions were finally starting to come at regular intervals (moving into active labor) so they checked me. I was dilated to a 6.5 cm.
8:45pm
My contractions now were getting worse then what I was feeling before I had the epidural. Epidurals work with gravity meaning that they tend to flow down. The whole time I could feel that my right side was more numb. The epidural drip did have a function where you could push a button for an extra dose. I had the nurse push it for the first time.
With the contractions now the baby's heartbeat would dip, so they put me on oxygen and had me switch from one side to the other to see if my position would help him. After doing that several times they said that the baby did the best when I was on my right side. So I had to stay on that side. Remember that the epidural was already working better on that side so as it continued to flow more to the right, my left side got a lot of the feeling back. I could only feel contractions on half of my body but it might have been the whole thing because they really hurt. Unfortunately, there wasn't much the nurses could do.
9:11pm
They took me off the oxygen and I had them give me another temporary extra dose of the epidural. Around now another anesthesiologist came in because I was complaining from the pain. He said that there wasn't much they could do because I had to stay on my right side but they would make me as comfortable as possible. They did say it might be time to give me a stronger batch of epidural. He left. My contractions now were getting extremely intense.
9:40
This half hour was the worst part of my whole labor and life. I had gone from active labor to transitional labor (transition contractions are the ones right before you are fully dilated and feel ready to push). At the time though, I didn't know that I was that close because the last time they checked, I wasn't that far.
I had to really work through each contraction. I really only remember seeing Logan's face. He was beside me stroking my head and holding my hand. As each contraction ramped up it made it hard to think or breath. I didn't feel in control of myself at all. Time was stretched out and felt like forever. I kinda felt like I was loosing it but Logan said that I actually didn't do that bad. He said I didn't cry, squeeze the crap out of his hand or yell but was just kinda whimpering. I do remember Logan helped me to breath deeply and would breath with me so I could mimic him and get through each contraction. I was lucky to still get a little bit of time in between each one where I could refocus.
10:00
I remember them saying something about how that they almost had my meds ready and the nurse asked how I was. I told her that I was feeling a lot of pressure now. She asked where and I told her down below. It had been a while since I had last been checked so she decided to see where I was at. I remember her being kinda excited when she told me that I couldn't get the extra epidural medications now (it would make the baby lethargic instead of awake and alert when he came) because I had done it! I was 10 cm dilated and %100 effaced! I was surprised I had gotten there too.
The only problem was that the Doctor was in another room delivering a baby so they said I had to wait. The nurse said that they were not expecting the baby to come flying out but because I was so early the baby could come pretty quick. Waiting was really hard. As I did, I could feel the head moving down further into my pelvis with each contraction. I could feel so much pressure! In my class they said some women don't feel the need to push right away and get some rest at this point. That was not so with me.
10:10
Dr Dicarlo finally came in and got set up. They broke the bottom part of my bed down, took the removable cushion off and pulled the stirrups out. Logan said they put a huge bag under me to catch everything. I thought it was so weird that she could put her hands in and feel around and to tell what way the baby was facing.
Then it was time to start pushing!! I remember there was so much pressure and pain from the contractions as I tried NOT to push - I was very glad I was finally able to. Each time I had a contraction, they had me take a breath, hold it in, and the nurse would count to 10. I would breath out, take a deep breath and push again right away. I did this three times in a row each contraction.
After I started pushing all the pain and a lot of the pressure was completely gone. For the first time, I didn't really feel pain, it just felt like there was a head sticking out of me (it wasn't but it felt like it was already 2 inches out). I felt very focused on the job at hand and calm. Also once I started to push, my contractions slowed down. I remember Logan holding one leg, the nurse holding the other and all of them just watching and waiting for a big enough contraction to come along for me to push. I could tell as one came before they saw it but often the Doctor said to wait until it built up enough. I felt like there was a lot of waiting in between each contraction and pushing.
The baby's heartbeat was dipping again so I got put back on the oxygen mask. I really hated it in my face. They told me to take it off as I pushed and I found that to be really distracting. As another way to help me push they asked if I wanted the mirror to see my progress. So I had them bring it out. After one set of pushing I told them to take it away. It was also too distracting - I couldn't look up at it and focus on pushing at the same time.
Each time I pushed they told me what a good job I was doing. I didn't care if that was true or not, I was happy to hear it.
At about 10:55 the doctor said she wanted the baby to come on the next push. I think Connor was starting to get stressed now. I pushed and he didn't come. We waited for another really big contraction and I pushed but he didn't come. This is when the Dr gave me an episiotomy - not a big one but enough to help Connor get out faster.
Finally I got another large contraction and pushed about five times in a row until I could feel my baby's little body sliding out.
11:03pm
Connor was born! They put him up on my chest right away and I was just amazed, happy and couldn't believe how much I already loved this little guy! Connor was crying a little bit and one of the nurses came with a bulb syringe and sucked out some fluid in his mouth and then he really cried! They all seemed happy to hear his lungs were good. I remember thinking that he didn't look like Logan or me at all but I knew he was kinda squished and would change. Logan got to cut the cord.
I got to hold him a while skin to skin while they did his first checks but because he was born early they took him to check all his vitals and see how he was doing. The Doctor stayed and stitched me up.
We named him Connor Reese Dixon.
