Birth Story and a pic (this is the short version but still so long!)

I posted Tuesday night that I had been checked and was 2cm and that the dr. stripped my membranes.  I guess for once that might have finally put someone into labor.  It left me extremely uncomfortable and  before I even left the office I was cramping terribly and was wishing I didn?t have to drive home.

I got up a few times during the night as usual and just kept thinking about how I wish the Dr. hadn?t done that because I was really in pain.  Then, at 4am I woke up and just laid there in pain for what felt like forever.  I could not stay laying down so I got up and went to our guest room and started timing my contractions online and realized they were 2-3 minutes apart and were lasting between 55-70 seconds.  I still didn?t believe they were the real thing and decided to take a shower around 4:45am.  At 5am DH woke up and came into the bathroom to ask if I was ok.  I told him that I was hurting but that I was ok.  I think he had looked at my contraction timer before he came in though, so he knew what was up.  I got out of the shower and DH said he was going to take a shower and get ready just in case, but I thought he was being silly and told him I was really ok.   He decided to take that shower anyway, good thing!  When he got out and was getting ready I finally got to a point where I had to stop walking when a contraction would hit.  We decided then that I needed to go ahead and call the dr. sooner than 8.  At 6:30 I called work and told them I would not be coming in and that we would be going to the hospital soon.

At 7am I called the after hours line.  They called me right back and I told her the contractions were coming between 2-3 minutes apart and lasting about a minute.  She told me to go ahead and get in the car and come in and she would let the hospital know I was on my way.  DH already had the car all packed up and we were on our way!  DH wanted to drop me off at the door so badly, but I begged him to just park in the deck and let me walk in with him.  I made it just fine. 

They took me back and got me hooked up to the monitors to monitor the baby?s heartrate and my contractions.  She was shocked and said, ?boy you are really knocking them out, aren?t you??  She checked me and said I was about 3-4 cm dilated so I was definitely getting somewhere and she said she thought I was having a baby today and went to let the dr. know her opinion.  Dr. Anderson came in about 10 minutes later and looked at the papers that the monitors had been spitting out and then he checked me and said that we were definitely having a baby today!  He also bragged to the nurses at least two or three times that he had stripped my membranes, I think he was pretty proud of himself for actually getting my labor started.

I labored without the epidural for quite some time.  I was more scared of the epidural than the baby, but ultimately I wanted this to be a good experience and have good memories to share with DH and I wasn?t sure that if the pain got worse I wouldn?t just be a sobbing mess so I went for the epidural.  They also told me I had a long way to go because the baby never dropped and was still very high up.  The epidural, I think, was the worst part of it all for me.  I absolutely hated getting it and I will have a big decision to make again next time.  The dr came in shortly afterwards and broke my water because it still had not broken on its own.  They also started to administer Pitocin because my labor was not progressing as well as they would have liked on its own.

Around 3 pm I started feeling like I had been sitting on my butt for way too long.  I told the nurse and they were worried at first that it was the epidural not working again, but when I said it again she decided to check me again and I was 7 cm.  Within the next hour I started shaking terribly and my teeth started chattering like crazy.  I told the nurse I was starting to feel like I needed to push and she told me that sometimes the last few cm can go quickly so she checked again and said I had just a tiny bit before she would call me 10 cm and she had me push a little through my next two contractions.  When I got to 10 she started preparing things and told me not to push anymore because I needed to labor down to bring the baby into position.  She went to get the Dr. and he checked me and said he would be back in a little bit and that we would probably be having a baby in about 30 minutes or so.  He also said that I was going to beat the other lady he was working with who was having her 4th child and came in the same amount dilated as me and he couldn?t believe it.

The nurse finally started letting me push at 4pm and she had to run off to get the Dr. again because she said it was not going to be 30 minutes!  He came in and it was so exciting to see him get all suited up because I knew this was really it.  I pushed just a few more times and Benjamin Grant was born at 4:22pm after only 22 minutes of pushing.  It was absolutely amazing when he put him up on my chest and I loved the experience, pain and all.

And since I always loved seeing the expression on new mom's faces after delivery, I will share this pic: