Samantha is here two weeks early!!!

Sunday June 21st

I had been having contractions for the past couple weeks, but none of them felt like the ones I started getting that night. I had already been to L&D twice within the last two weeks, so I wanted to make sure that this was really it before I went back there.  I sat in the bath tub and started to time them.  They hurt a lot and were about 5-6 minutes apart.  I had a prescription my OB gave me for ambian (sp?) so I took one and went to sleep.

I woke up all throughout the night still having contractions.  The sleeping pill didn't really help at all.  I woke up at 6:45, tried to work for a couple hours, until finally around 10:45am I couldn't take it anymore. I went to the bathroom and realized I was having my bloody show.  I called my mom to have her take me to L&D.  I called DH to let him know what was going on, but not to leave work yet until we go to the hospital were sure that this was really it.  He had missed a ton of work and I didn't want to make him leave again for another false labor.  Thankfully the hospital is only about 15 minutes away because I was in a serious amount of pain and my contractions were only a few minutes apart.  I got there and was dilated to 3 1/2 cm, 1/2 cm more than a few days earlier.  They gave me an IV and admitted me to a L&D room.  I called DH and he came right away, we couldn't believe it was really time. 

I got the epidural right away.  My mindset was that if there was a way to not feel the pain why wouldn't I take advantage of it?  It was amazing.  I was having contractions one after another and couldn't feel anything.  It didn't hurt at all when I got the epidural either.  They checked me an hour later and I was at 4 cm, another hour and I was at 5 cm, another hour and I was at 6 cm.  They checked me again in another hour and I was still at 6 cm.  They checked me again an hour later, still at 6.  They said the epidural sometimes slows things down, so they started pitocin.  I didn't realize how much blood I would lose from dilating.  I could literally feel the blood coming out of me, I felt like I was peeing on myself or something, but the nurses didn't seem to be concerned and told me it was totally normal so I didn't worry about it.  Around 7:30pm I started feeling a lot of pain/pressure.  My epidural seemed to be wearing off or something, so they gave me some other kind of medication that made my legs completely heavy and numb.  

I remember at 8 pm all of the sudden I felt a whole bunch of pressure really low and I felt like I needed to start pushing.  DH went and got the nurse, I was 10 cm, it was time to start.  I pushed for what seemed like forever even though it really wasn't that long.  DD got stuck behind my pelvic bone, if that hadn't happened they said I would have had her out in 30 minutes.  I pushed for an hour and a half, and finally at 9:34pm Samantha was born.  She weighed 6 lbs. 15 oz. and was 20.1 inches long.  She had the cord wrapped around her neck twice.  She wasn't breathing very well and wasn't getting very much color, they had to take her to the special care nursery right away.  I had contractions still for the next 45 minutes from the pitocin.  Labor really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  Maybe it was from the medication, but it was mostly pressure, not pain.  Honestly the most painful thing was when the nurses had to push down as hard as they could on my lower abdomen to get blood out.  It hurt so freakin bad.  They had to keep doing it every 10 minutes or so for the next hour, I think they said it was to make sure I didn't get any blood clots?  I can't really remember because I was so incredibly exhausted.

They took me to my postpartum room around 11pm, we were able to stop by the nursery and the way over so that I could see Samantha.  She was so beautiful I couldn't believe it.  We stayed for a few minutes then went to our room, it was weird because I felt completely fine.  I was walking around after the nurse left, I honestly felt like I could have gone home that night.  At 1:30am they brought Samantha into our room.  She was breathing really well now and her color finally came in.  We were able to go home two days later. 

Everything has been going great, she was really good at breastfeeding right away.  It's crazy because she looks so different already then she did even from the first day she came home.  We love her so much!