Part I
On Tuesday when Mike got home from work he needed to mow the lawn but said he was going to take a nap instead and mow on Friday. I was 39 weeks and told him "You might not be able to on Friday!" Needless to say, he still took a nap. That night I was feeling pretty emotional so I told Mike I had to get our of here and met my mom for dinner at Olive Garden just her and I. As soon as I saw her in the parking lot I started crying. I told her I was just feeling really overwhelmed. And that I was scared at the thought of having two kids soon and I was anxious about labor and delivery. She told me "Well just get an epidural then." I wasn't really nervous about the pain, it was the anticipation of having NO idea when I was going to go into labor. It wasn't like that with Ellie-with her we went into the hospital for another reason and they told me I was going to have a baby that day. I felt a lot better after chatting with my mom and having some alone time out of the house. Even though I'm old and married now and a mom myself-sometimes I still just need my mom. I was having braxton hicks through out dinner and while we were shopping at the Christian book store but I had a lot this pregnancy so I didn't really think anything of it. Once I got home I watched some TV and went to bed.
I woke up a little before 4:00am feeling pretty crampy and having to go to the bathroom and thought maybe this it it-but there was no way I was going to get out of bed to try and jump start labor. I knew that I would need my rest and figured if it was labor then it would happen no matter what. I kept feeling crampy and dozed off and on until 7:00 and finally fell back to sleep when Mike got up for work. Ellie woke up around 9:00 and I got out of bed and went to the bathroom and put in my contacts and thought "Yep. that was a contraction." When I went to her room to get her out of her crib I thought "Yep, that was another one." Then we got breakfast and I thought "Yep. That's another one." I sent Mike a text and said "don't get all excited but you might be coming home from work today..." He called me and told me to time my contractions and I told him I didn't have time for that, I was doing stuff. I could still talk through the contractions and they weren't super painful so I figured that I had some time. If I was going to have a baby there was stuff that needed to get done. I washed the dishes, cleaned the bathroom, vacuumed the living room, folded the laundry, etc. And I took a shower and did my hair and make-up because darn it I was going to look good in pictures right after I had him. (Ha, yeah right.)
Once I finished everything I decided that maybe I should time them so I used my handy dandy contraction timer app and timed them for about a half hour and sent Mike a screen shot of the data. My contractions were about 2 minutes apart and about a minute long. He told me that I needed to call Bonnie our Doula and let her know what was going on.
She instantly called me and told me I needed to tell Mike to come home and this was the real deal. I was still pretty skeptical because of the false alarm we had 2 weeks prior, and because I wasn't really in much pain. I was expecting the horrible pain like I had that night. I told both Mike and Bonnie I didn't think I was close but they both thought I was. So I finally told Mike to come home and asked my dad to come over and watch Ellie at our house instead of his. I was supposed to have a prenatal appointment with my midwife that day at 1:20 and my dad was going to watch her but I told him instead I might be having a baby. He got to our house around 12:15 and Mike and I headed out shortly after. Thankfully our bags were packed for all of us so we didn't have to worry about any of that.
I told Bonnie we were on our way and we headed for the hospital. I wasn't really looking forward to the car ride there with contractions that were 2 minutes apart but it wasn't too horrible. Just a lot of pressure. I told Mike not to get pulled over (which would be his MO) and closed my eyes and had him blast The Desert Song on repeat the whole way there.
We met Bonnie up at L&D and went into triage and got hooked up to the monitors. My contractions were indeed about 2 minutes apart and the midwife on call checked me and said "You're 2.5/3cm" I looked at Mike and said I told you I wasn't close. They monitored me for a little bit and said that Michael's heart rate wasn't reactive enough so they did a biophysical profile to check on him. It was so cute to see him on the ultrasound doing practice breathing and opening and closing his hands and kicking around. Everything looked fine so they told me I could go walk around for a little bit and see if I progressed at all.
Mike and I went and walked up and down the stairs (and went and got him a pizza from the cafeteria-they have amazing food!) to try to get things going. During every contraction I did lunges on the stairs or did the pelvic tilt standing up against the wall. I said "This is crap I'm tired. I know why people get induced, I just want to go into labor-I don't want to have to work for it." I was getting hot and the contractions were getting more painful so we went back into the waiting room and I walked around there for a bit. We finally went back into triage and hooked me back up to the monitors. Bonnie could see on the monitor when I was having a contraction and she and Mike would push on my knees when one came until it was over. It really helped relieve the pressure. The midwife came back in and checked me and I had progressed to a 4. Hallelujah!! She asked me if she could do a membrane sweep and I swear she checked my tonsils while she was in there! She said alright let's get you admitted and then I started to cry. Not big sobbing alligator tears, but I got a little emotional knowing that we were going to be meeting our son soon and a little afraid about labor and delivery. I really wanted to go natural, but there was a HUGE part of me that didn't really think that I could do it. Bonnie said "You didn't want to get sent home but now that you're being admitted you're crying!?!"
We were sent over the a birthing room and Bonnie and Mike started to get the tub ready while coming to do the hip press every 2 minutes when I was having a contraction. After about 30 minutes the tub was filled enough for me to get in and I gladly got in.
1 comment:
Congratulations on your new son! Thanks for sharing!
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