Alex's Birth Story

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On Saturday, Jan. 19, my DH left for work at 6:30 a.m., like every Saturday. I went to Whataburger (my pregnancy addiction) shortly after, then came home and went back to sleep. I woke up at 9:00 with what felt like period cramps. I hadn't felt anything like that before, so I figured this was it. I was still able to sleep through the cramps so I didn't call anyone. I woke up about 11:00 and called my mom because the cramps were still going on and getting slightly stronger. Still only about 10 minutes apart though. My mom freaked out and wanted to come over immediately, but I told her I just wanted to lay in bed and I didn't think anything would be happening any time soon. I called DH at work at 1:30, but told him he didn't need to come home yet. My mom showed up about that time, of course, with my sister. DH ended up coming home at 4:30 because the contractions were getting pretty bad and I didn't know what to expect next. We timed the contractions for the rest of the evening and they were about 7-10 minutes apart. I knew we weren't supposed to head to the hospital till they were 5 minutes apart so we stayed put. Finally, at 9:30 p.m. I told DH, "we need to go to the hospital at least to get me checked out because I don't know how this can get any worse." Don't ever say that!!! Anyway, we got to the hospital about 10:00 p.m. and I was dilated to a 3. I was in pretty bad pain, so they gave me a shot of Fentanyl. That pretty much did absolutely nothing for me! After 3 hours of monitoring, I was still at a 3, so they told me I could stay to be monitored more or go home. They had me convinced it was only Braxton Hicks so I decided to go home because I was so uncomfortable there. We got home about 1:30 a.m., I ate a pb&j, then DH and I decided to lay down a little bit. It was right about that time that the contractions really picked up in intensity. DH was asleep so I went to the living room to try to breathe through it, but that wasn't happening. Went back to the bedroom and woke dh up with my moaning and groaning. We timed out the contractions - 3-5 minutes apart! So off we went back tothe hospital. We got there about 4:30 a.m., they checked me and I was at a 6! First thing out of my mouth was, "great, when can I get the epidural?" They told me it would be about an hour because they had to get paperwork signed and get me started on IV fluids. They gave me another shot of Fentanyl while I was waiting, which again did nothing but maybe make it a little easier to relax in between contractions. Maybe. Finally the anethesiologist got there, numbed me up and tried to get the epi going. All I could hear was the needle scraping bone and him saying my vertabrae were so squished together I would probably end up with degenerative disk disease! Finally he got it in and...RELIEF! At that point, all my family came in, I didn't even know they were at the hospital. I passed out for a couple hours because of all the drugs, and woke up with a lot of pressure. They checked me and I was at a 10! I pushed and pushed for what seemed like forever, and finally the doc decided to use the vacuum. It was about this time that the epi started wearing off. DS started crowning, and I could pretty much feel everything. I ended up tearing in 2 places, one being 2nd degree. After 25.5 hours of labor, 2.5 hours of pushing, Alexander Thomas was born at 10:23 a.m.weighing in at 8 lbs 1 oz and measuring 20.5 inches. The whole time I was in labor I kept telling myself "you are NEVER doing this again...like ever!" and "you better not forget this!" But, a couple months later, I was okay with the idea of having more kids...maybe! My tiny baby is now 7 months old and the best thing that ever happened to us!