3/30: 39 week appointment. I begged for any type of intervention… admit me, give me the antibiotic and break my water… do a foley catheter for forced cervical dilation… SOMETHING. Nope. Why? “Any intervention we do lowers your chance for success.” Fine. At this point I don’t care. Just please get him out! Dr. Rice says “Ok, I guarantee this will put you into labor. We’ll put you on the schedule for 41 weeks.” At this point, I can’t imagine going another 2 weeks. I go to my car and cry…
3/31: Ok, so time to spend some quality time with the birthing ball. Time to just relax and take comfort in the fact that, at most, I’ll only be pregnant for 2 more weeks. Chicken Nachos for dinner and I decided to listen to the hypnobirthing cd to help me relax so I can finally sleep.
4/1: 5:30 am I wake up to what I think are gas/intestinal pains. Tried to go to the bathroom to no avail. I can’t go back to sleep so I head downstairs to let the hubby sleep. At about 6:30 I realize that they’re much stronger and are about 6 minutes apart… apparently these are contractions! Hubby comes downstairs and we decide that we should still send the boys to school b/c who knows how long this is going to take? I called my best friend and asked her to pick Jeffrey up from preschool and be at the house to get Dillan off the bus that afternoon.
It’s at this point that I start getting a little concerned. I called my mother (8 hours away in Oklahoma) and told her that we were headed in and that if this wasn’t labor… just shoot me b/c this HURTS!
7am we put Dillan on the bus and I try to breathe through the contractions long enough to get Jeffrey to preschool. My mother is insisting that I not wait to take Jeffrey to preschool but really… what else am I supposed to do with him? So at 9am we take Jeffrey to school and head to the hospital. By this point ‘painful’ doesn’t even begin to describe how they feel. I can’t sit still during them and I’m BEGGING him to drive faster! Just GET ME THERE!
I finally remembered that I also needed to call and cancel Dillan’s therapy for that day… had to pass the phone off halfway through the call b/c I couldn’t do anything but scream and claw at the handle bar during the contractions that are now 3 minutes apart at best.
So… we get to the hospital. He drops me off at the front and goes to park the car. I had to stop between the outer and inner doors for a contraction… the people walking by looked more than slightly concerned. By the way, WHERE are the people that run out with the wheelchair like in the movies?? That would’ve been helpful.
So we get up to L&D and I inform them that I’m in labor. We’re buzzed in and checked into a room. Now, I’d already been up here twice the week before. Once for bleeding and once when I thought my water had broken. One of the nurses from a previous visit looked at me and said “well, you’re finally in labor!” I chuckled through another contraction. At this point I can’t even stand up during the contractions so changing was… interesting to say the least.
Its now 10 am and they’ve got me hooked up and want to check me. I believe my exact words were “if I’m not a 4, I don’t want to know.” I was 4cms and 90% effaced. Up until now I’d been 2 and 0%. This is real!! The nurse comes back from informing my doctor and informs me that I can have the epidural whenever I want it. I had originally wanted no pain meds.. I changed my mind. I said “let’s just get that now.” An hour later, at 11am, they came in to place the epidural. They (very nicely) decided to wait until after that was placed to check me again. Thank you!!
The epidural was so wonderful. I was not aware, however, that I’d still feel pressure. That wasn’t the most fun I’d ever had. Anywho, they check me again and I’m 6cms, 100% and bulging waters. 30 minutes after that, my water broke spontaneously. There was meconium present which (again) changed my birth preferences. After having my oldest come out grey and spend so long in the NICU… I requested that they make sure he was fine and suctioned out as soon as possible.
Around 12:30 the doctor decided that she’d like to place an internal pressure monitor to measure the pressure being put on my previous incisions. She went to place it and said “well, nevermind… you’re complete!” Um.. what?? My mom hasn’t had time to get here yet… This is my first vaginal delivery…don’t they take a long time? Apparently not for me. She had me do 1 test push and told me to stop and not push again. They started getting the room prepped and ready for the baby.
1pm the doctor (along with 20 other people) come in to the room to start pushing for real! There were nursing students along with their instructor, my nurse, the baby nurses, a NICU nurse just in case, the attending and resident and a couple of student doctors. Apparently vba2c’s aren’t that common. I remembered to ask them to place the mirror where I could see (which was fun to try and do around all those people) and I remember the resident commenting on how amazing it was that I’d dilated that quickly all by myself… w/no pit and my water breaking on its own.
Ladies, I pushed for 10 minutes and my little Marcus Dalton was born. All 9 pounds 1 ounce of him. He’s absolutely perfect and didn’t require any special attention b/c of the meconium. They kept saying that I was a good pusher and at one point I said “I don’t know what that MEANS” and they all laughed. It was an amazing delivery and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.
The most amazing thing to me was that after I had him in my arms and was bfing him (within 5 minutes of delivery) I was offered a sandwich. I still can’t get over that. I ate while he was eating… then I looked around and remember thinking “ok… now what?”
Several nurses came in my room over the course of the day and commented on how lucky I was. I apparently had the ONLY doctor in the city that will allow vba2cs.
Marcus Dalton born 4/1 @ 1:16pm. 9lbs. 1oz. 21.5 inches long.
