Labor and Delivery!!!

This pregnancy, labor and delivery experience for me has been completely different. I had no idea what I was in for! I am going to attempt to blog about my journey the last week of pregnancy since it's been so interesting!!

Tuesday evening, January 19, into the early hours of January 20, I had "false labor." Regular contractions started about 11 p.m. and ended about 3 a.m. We never actually went to the hospital, but neither Chris or I got much sleep! Since I delivered 11 days early with my last pregnancy, we pretty much expected it to be early again this time - wrong! My parents came for the weekend (22-24th) hoping to help with Little A in case we needed to leave for the hospital. Sure enough they left for home and about six hours later at about 9:30 p.m. on Sunday I noticed regular contractions beginning. Nothing painful but regular, and Chris started panicking insisting that we head to the hospital. Baby #1 was 8 hours of labor, baby #2 was 6 hours of labor and who knew just how quickly this one might come...

My brother-in-law, Nick, came to the house just before midnight and off we went to the hospital. After checking in and getting settled, I was told that I was only dilated 3-4 cm and was 75% effaced. That was disappointing. The monitor showed that I had regular, good quality contractions and baby sounded great. Chris and I walked the halls of St. Elizabeth for over an hour, and I even got to soak in the lovely whirlpool tub for 30 minutes this time. By 3:00 a.m., I was still only 4 cm, so they called my doctor for further instructions. He advised that I not leave and wanted me to sleep with the monitors on for the remainder of the night. Talk about extremely uncomfortable...

At some point around 8 a.m. I was told that my doctor would be in before heading to clinic. He showed up after needing to be in a last minute surgery about 9:45 a.m. He found me to be dilated 6-7 cm at that time and broke my water. I was excited at that point because I still had no pain up until my water breaking which I thought said a lot being dilated that much. The water breaking experience was far different from anything I've ever experienced before. My previous two water breakings had been easy. This one was not for two reasons - our little angel's head had not descended and I had lots of extra fluid. This poses the risk of umbilical cord prolapse which can happen when the baby's head is not engaged directly on the cervix. A prolapse would be an emergency situation and involve a Cesarean section.

I remained "stuck" at about 7 cm for the next five hours all while having some very hard labor pains. Meanwhile my doctor calls in to check on me. His suggestion was to start pitocin and get an epidural to help my exhausted body relax. At that point I was ready to take any advice and agreed to the epidural. Within ten minutes of getting an epidural and just 1 mg of pitocin later I was dilated to 10 cm and ready to push. The surgical team wasn't even ready at that point. My doctor was still getting prepped and everyone was scrambling as baby's head was crowning. Luckily, I felt NOTHING and had no problem waiting. After one push I had an internal tear starting, so he had me push softly two more times to reduce more tearing, and then she was out! Chris was right - it was another girl. She got Apgar scores of 8/8/9. She never really did cry and received some oxygen for being a bit blue-gray. She doesn't cry a whole lot even now and has a very sweet personality. Maybe she is our gift after raising our challenging little Ava?! Or maybe the toddler years have gotten the best of us?? I guess we're in for another ride of our lives!!