I barely remember being 40 weeks pregnant now. Definitely a little blurry in my memory which is a very good thing :) Let's just recap with, I was somewhat miserable and ready to meet our baby boy!
I was scheduled to be induced on Tuesday, April 17th. B decided that he would actually rather be born on tax day for the irony of it [given my profession]. At about 1:00 am on Sunday, April 15th, I woke up to what I suspected was my water breaking. It was not a gush of crazy water that soaked the bed, the floor, etc as you see on TV though. Just needed some new underpants and we were good to go (later found out my water had only partially broken or was "leaking" & more was to come out at delivery). No contractions yet at this point so I just got out of bed and went to lay on the couch.
Very soon after, I started having what I thought were contractions - waves of pain/cramping/tightening sensation that were timeable but inconsistent. Every 7 minutes for a little while, then every 15 minutes, then every 4 minutes, then every 7 minutes. I was afraid of going in to the hospital at this point and being sent home for not being far enough along in labor or not being in "real" labor at all. And as the hospital is at least 45 minutes from our house, I did not want to be sent home!
So, I went on like this for a couple more hours until Taylor woke up and found me missing from bed about 4:00 am. I had not woken him at this point b/c I wanted to be "sure" and there was no need for both of us to lose sleep in my opinion. He was actually upset and appalled that I didn't wake him earlier, oops! When he woke up, I was in our guest bathroom leaning over the sink while having a contraction. Had just gone to the bathroom but couldn't make it back to the couch before the contraction hit. And couldn't exactly walk while the contraction was happening. MAYBE this should've signaled my mind that we should go ahead and go in, or at least that I should wake my Hub. But nope, my mind did not go there. He came to check on me, I told him "I think I might be in labor" and he said something to the effect of "Let's go". I somewhat agreed but my contractions were still not super consistent... 5 minutes, 2 minutes, 7 minutes. Turns out they never actually got consistent (the doc told me real labor contrax would be!). I wanted to shower, shave my legs (and other areas), dry my hair, & get generally up and ready for the day. I proceeded to do this but turns out I barely got the shower completed, did not shave, did not dry and barely brushed my hair, and barely dried myself b/c I was in so much pain. While in the shower I told T that yeah, maybe we should go ahead and leave now.
We left the house at around 5:30 am. The car ride to the hospital was pretty bad. I remember telling T that I just needed a break, they were coming too fast. I think he was trying to help me breathe like we learned in the childbirth class but it wasn't actually so easy in the moment. We FINALLY arrived at Willow Creek's back entrance to L&D since it was still not regular office hours. T was looking for a place to park and I think I told him to park in a spot reserved for someone b/c I just didn't care & it was taking too long to find a spot. He then parked on the curb and we got out. There were a couple nurses outside looking at the oncoming storm and they met us at the door. T said we thought I was in labor and they asked my due date. I told them "last Thursday" and they said, "yep, she's in labor". I had to pause a couple times before getting in the building and the nurses were very patient with me. It was probably around 6:15 at this point. I think T went back to appropriately park the car at some point but I honestly don't remember when. They checked us in, made me pee in a cup (which was difficult at 9 months preg even w/o contrax complicating things), and put me on a bed in triage.
They checked me for dilation level and to see if my water had broken. Dilated to 5 cm and the swab test for water breaking came back negative but they also couldn't feel the intact bag of waters. Very soon, I started crying and vomiting from the pain. It felt like forever before they got me to an actual room but really it wasn't long. Taylor kept asking everyone when I could get an epidural. We finally got in the room and the anethesiologist arrived to give me the epidural. Taylor had to leave the room which made me sad but I remember just using every bit of my concentration to stay still so he could get the needle in the right spot. Finally it was in and I felt better immedialy. The nurse then came in to check me again and I was at a 10 right after getting the epidural. Wouldn't have even gotten it had they checked me beforehand. Thank goodness! So it was time to start pushing at about 7:50 am. It look 2.5 exhausting hours for B to arrive as he was presenting sunny side up and sorta sideways instead of facedown and strait as is appropriate. During the course of the pushing there was a tornado warning which I did not realize but Taylor told me about later. I almost had to continue this process in the hallway. B's heart rate dropped several times and they almost used the vacuum but Dr. Bailey was able to get him manually turned/positioned and he was finally born. Had some bad brusing on the side of his head from his position on my bone and his ear was pushed forward on that side also. T held my leg the whole time I pushed and he cut the cord :-)
Perfect little angel @ 7 lbs 6 oz and 20 inches at 10:20am Sunday, April 15th, 2012.
We then called family/friends b/c there was absolutely NO time to think about it during labor. I'm actually really glad it turned out how it did. We had the perfect amount of new family bonding time before anyone showed up. At that point, we were ready to show our little man to the world :)
