The birth story

Friday night (Jan. 27), we were debating whether or not to go out to dinner or stay in. Of course, I was exhausted and didn't really want to go, but I knew we only had a few weeks left to easily go out. So, we called some friends and met up with them for dinner and drinks. Since I can't drink, I ordered a delicious dessert Scottish cake at a local brewery that ended up being the size of a brick! I secretly think it was the amount of cake that made me go into labor.

We went to bed around midnight that night. I woke up on schedule at 2 a.m. to go to the bathroom. When I sat on the toilet, a ton of liquid gushed out, but I realized I had not started peeing yet. I know what that means, and I was so thankful it happened on the toilet and not in the bed!

So, I jumped in the shower (to shave my legs and wash my hair so I look alright in the pics!) and woke up the hubs. He gets in the shower while I get ready, and I have my first contraction during this time - around 2:20 a.m. We leave the house around 2:40 a.m. and drive the 25 minutes to the hospital while my contractions are 3-4 minutes apart. They were fast, but not so terrible that I couldn't walk in to the hospital on my own.

In triage, the nurse had to verify that my water had indeed broke (broken?) even though I was obviously in a lot of pain. She tried twice to put some of my "wetness" on a slide and look at it to verify. She told me twice that she didn't think my water had actually broken. Nevermind the fact that I'm soaking the bed I'm sitting on. A resident physician came in and took one look at me down there and said she'd page my doctor and get my admission paperwork going. This was around 4:30 a.m. By this point, I'm in so much pain and contractions are so close that I cannot catch my breath or open my eyes, so these times are guesstimates. At this point, she said I was dilated 3-4 cm and was not completely effaced yet.

Now in the labor and delivery room, I'm waiting for anesthesiology to bring me that sweet, sweet relief - my epidural. There were several other births going on at the same time, so it was not my turn until around 6:15 a.m.  They had to give me two doses to feel any relief, and then my blood pressure plummeted. It was pretty tense in the room for a bit while they pushed a ton of fluids into my arm to regulate my BP. Once things calmed down and they left, I felt much better, and even took a tiny nap until my new nurse came in at shift change - around 7:15 a.m.

The new nurse was awesome. She decided since I hadn't been evaluated for a while she'd check to see how dilated I was. I loved the look on her face that said "OMG" when she realized I was 10 cm and ready to push! She went to page my doctor to make sure she was on her way ASAP. Then she said we were going to "practice push" for a bit until the doctor arrived. We practiced twice and she told me to just relax because the head was coming out already. YIKES!!

About 20 minutes later, my OB's partner arrived (my OB was not on-call this weekend) with another resident MD. For the next 45 minutes (7:45-8:32) I pushed. For most of this, the OB was chillin at the end of my bed, one glove on, and watched the head while massaging the area around his head. Then all of a sudden, she stood up and things started happening. She, and the other doc put on a lot of garb, half of the bed came off, and things felt serious in the room. I pushed a few more times and the baby came out! I felt no pain or discomfort even - thanks to that epidural. Once the baby started crying, they passed him to my bare stomach and let me cuddle him while he was wiped down and cleaned up.

After about an hour of bonding, he was weighed, bathed and warmed up before returning to me.

Overall, it was a quick, but intense labor - lasting 6.5 hours total. I have had very little pain/discomfort considering I have three stitches and he weighed 9 lbs. We are still recovering at home and trying to get more sleep.