Gwendolynn Ann (long)

Sillybon

So I had that false alarm Jan 25th but I think all the doctor's checking to see if my water had actually broken got things started.  That afternoon I started having alot of contractions but irregular in timing.  Contrations woke me up shortly after midnight and never stopped.  After vomiting around 7, I was awake enough to be standing instead of sitting and suddenly my contractions were easier to handle (not lasting as long and not as painful) and consistently between 2 and 5 minutes apart.  Of course going to the hospital they have you lie down to monitor you and that caused them to go irregular in timing again.  I was admitted, however, because I was 4cm dilated!  The nurses were fine with my plan to go natural and let me walk around the ward for a while.  The plan was to let me walk/stand as much as I wanted to and only be on the bed when they wanted to monitor the baby.

I didn't get to walk that much.  Baby was monitored for a while and then I was allowed to walk again.  Next stint of monitoring I was kept to the bed.  The nurses were waiting for my doctor to come over.  Nurse said she (the doc) would be in soon and left.  As soon as the door closed, my water broke.  That was at noon.  We called the nurse in and she changed the pads underneath me so that I was no longer in a puddle.  Unfortunately meconium was present in the fluid.  I now I had to stay hooked up to the monitors and walking was out.  I was in bed until the doc checked me around 1pm.  I was a "stretchy 4 cm dilated".  I wanted drugs to take the edge off the pain.  Bless the nurses, they convinced me to try the birthing ball for a while.

I was on the ball for a while, then switched to standing.  That didn't last long.  I could no longer relax through the contractions and was tensing up and forgetting to breathe properly (I started to pant).  This time when I asked for drugs I got them.  I don't know what it was called but it was the narcotic.  Nurse told me I had to stay in the bed.  If I was extremely lucky, I would sleep through contractions.  If I was lucky, I would just sleep between contractions.  I was one of the unlucky few who just gets loopy and feels everything.  Loopy was still nice because I lost track of time.

I remember being checked and told I was 8 cm and to let them know if I felt like I had to push.  To me it felt that as soon as the nurse left that I had to push.  DH says more time had passed than that.  When they checked me again, I was 9.5 cm and they told me I could NOT push or I would damage my cervix.  Well, I ended up pushing some anyways.  I told them "If you don't want me to push then you better get me the epidural so that I can't feel the contractions!"  Nurses told me by the time the anaesthesiologist got there it would be time to push anyways and what did I want to do?  "So I can wait to push or I can wait to push?!  I think I'll wait to push."  I believe my sarcasm was ignored.

Nurse checked me a little bit later and I was fully dilated.  "So I can push guilt free now?" was all I had to say while inside I was overjoyed.  Pushing felt great!  After a test push, she told me to stop so that the doc could wash up and get ready.  I was not happy about that but at least the doc was quick.  It took 3 contractions worth of pushing, DH and I estimate 9 pushes, and Gwendolynn Ann was born at 4:49pm on Jan 26th!  We were lucky in that she didn't aspirate the amnionic fluid and get the meconium into her lungs. She weighed 7lbs 1oz and measured 19.1ins.