I said I'd post it, so here it is...
Monday,
Tuesday and Wednesday
I have false alarms each day. Every morning from about 4 am to about 7 am, I have irregular contractions. Each time, it scares me into doing something that I was supposed to have finished: Monday, I check to make sure I’ve done the insurance stuff I need to do. Tuesday, I finish packing my hospital bag. Wednesday, I pack up Trixie’s stuff for her to spend the time at Meem and Pap’s. Each morning I am doing this at odd hours, and it’s a weird feeling. I come REALLY close to waking Tucker up and saying “this is it”. I think once I told him, “get ready”, and he said “really?”.
Wednesday
Night
So, after dinner, I start getting contractions again, but am trying to figure out
if it dinner-indigestion related, or actually contractions. They start getting more regular and intense,
and are down to 8 to 12 minutes apart. Dr Carter gave me such a hard time about showing up late last time, she said “This time you should go as soon as you have contractions, especially since you’re doing a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesearean).” So, we call Meemo to come over and stay with Cal, and then we troop
over to the hospital around 11 pm.
The hospital gets us all set up, and then she does a pelvic exam: 4 cms (the cervixprogresses up to 10 cms, when you’re ‘fully dilated’, and that’s when you start pushing). They monitor my contractions, which are still kind of sporadic. They check my again after an hour or so, and still 4 cms. Since my cervix isn’t dilating more, they may send us back, although my contractions are coming every 5 minutes or so now. They talk to the doctor, and she says “Go labor at home”. So, we get discharged around 2 am.
A funny thing happened when we were at home. When we got back Meemo was still awake. Her responsibility was to be “on call” if Cal woke up, but he hadn’t woken up at
all. Meemo decided to spend the night, just in case we needed to go to the hospital sometime in the morning. Come 7 am, Calstarts calling for me, I get up and open his door, take him to his potty, etc. We end up putting Thomas the Train on TV, and Meemo is still sound asleep on the couch. She wakes up a little later,
looks at the TV, looks at Cal (who’s sitting on the other couch looking at her), and says “Oh.” I think Meemo is a sounder sleeper than she realizes.
Oh, and Shirley hadn’t called back, which was weird because she’s usually all over stuff like this. Turns out I told her to call Meemo, and she thought I was going to call her directly, so she stayed up at the farm, pacing around, waiting for our call.
Thursday
Morning
10:00
am
Ok, so I wait until the doctor’s office opens and call and they tell me to swing
by. We get there around 9 or 10 and they connect us to a monitor, and keep us there for a half and hour, checking us out. “Well, you are having contractions, although they’re not that close”, Dr Carter says. “Let’s do an exam, and an ultrasound and see what’s going on.”
We go to the ultrasound room and she offers exam first, or ultrasound first, and I opt for exam, to get it out of the way. She sticks her hand up there and pokes around and says, “Uh, you’re going to the hospital. You’re about 7 cms and 80 or 90% effaced (100% means you’re ready to go).” She takes her gloves off with a snap, looks at us and smiles, “You’re having a baby today!”
11:00
am
Tucker has wisely loaded up our car, so we get in and drive the 2 blocks to the
hospital. They check us in, just like last night, although this time I get an IV also!
1:00
pm
The contractions keep coming, but they’re manageable. Meemo and Shirley arrive, all hustle and bustle. The contractions are so manageable that I even dismiss Tucker to go have lunch with Meem and Pap. I have to say this because later when we tell the doctor that Tucker went and had a burger while I was in labor, all the women in the room look at him horrified. He gets back just in time for the epidural, which was maybe around 2 pm or 3 pm or so? The contractions were starting to get uncomfortable, so the epidural was nice and the rest of labor passed uneventfully.
5:00
pm
Our doctor decides that we can start pushing; I’ve made it to 10 cms! I thought, hey that wasn’t too bad; this will all be over soon! I do a couple of test pushes, and apparently, the baby doesn’t budge. Not the best sign. Still, I start pushing. And keep pushing. Thirty minutes later, the doctor says well, you may be pushing for 3 hours. Three hours?! I’m already tired, and I though the pushing would be the easy part. By now, I hadn’t eaten in about 20 hours, and I hadn’t drank in about 12 hours and
hadn’t slept – I’m beat!
5:30
pm
Still, we push on. Tucker’s there every step of the way, counting and helping to hold my legs. I’m really starting to get tired and frustrated, because I feel like I am pushing for naught – nothing is happening. I’ve gotten through labor without much fuss, but now I am starting to grunt and moan in earnest. After an hour, I am beat. Mentally, I think, I can’t do this, someone please give me a c-section now.
7:00
pm
After two hours, I am seriously losing steam. At one point, even the nurse had left and it was just Tucker and I, Tucker with his “Ok, one, two, three, push!” and me with my groaning and
moaning. Apparently Shirley was just outside the door and cried for an hour – I must have sounded really pitiful.
7:15
pm
By this time I am on auto-pilot. I know that it’s been at least two hours, so I _think_ an end is in sight, but I don’t know when and I don’t know if I’ll make it. I just figured I’d gather every last ounce I had and push until I couldn’t push anymore – what else could I do? It had been three of in the room most of the time: Tucker, me and the nurse, with the doctor popping in every once in a while. The nurse had left the room, come back and then picked up the phone and mumbled something about “stand by for delivery”. Then people started streaming into the room: the doctor, the maternity nurses, the NICU people. Later when Tucker and I talked about it, he said he was so relieved “The calvary had arrived! This means something’s going to happen!”
With all the people in the room I think it helped give me some performance pressure so I pushed extra hard, and about 10 minutes later, they pull him out. There was a rush when he came out and the pressure suddenly let up and I FELT SO GOOD.
7:27
pm Bonden arrives! And
that’s pretty much it. :-)
