Nick's Birth Story

We had spent the day with Andrew's family celebrating Mother's Day. I had spent most of the day worrying that I wasn't feeling Nick move around enough, but knowing that I was going to be seeing the doctor on Monday, I was trying to stay at ease. Around 8:30 pm, I went to the bathroom because it felt like my water might be leaking. I shrugged it off but I had the same sensation again around 9 pm so I called the doctor. She called back (at 9:18, according to our caller ID) and told us to come in to be checked. Thinking that even if this was the real thing that we would have tons of time, we didn't take any of our bags with us. We got settled into a temporary room and they monitored my contractions & Nick's movement for about 30-45 minutes. (Thank goodness it was temporary because there was a shared bathroom & someone else's pee in a bucket on the floor.) They also did 2 tests to see if my water had broken - nope! I had progressed though - I was 2 cm dilated and 60% effaced. The doctor came in and told us to walk around for an hour and she would meet us at midnight to re-monitor and re-check me. So we started pacing the hallways. My contractions were not unbearable at this point - real, but I could still walk through them and joke with Andrew.

When we got back to the room, the contractions seemed to pick up. They were off the charts when I was strapped to the monitor. Then Nick's heartrate showed some decelerations so the nurse had me quickly turn to my side to find a better position for him. The doctor came in shortly after and said that I was being admitted, thanks to that deceleration. She then checked me and found that I had progressed to 3 cm and 90% effaced - more progress! So she left to start the admissions process and sent my nurse to get me settled into a real labor room...much nicer! My contractions really started getting painful at this point and they checked me again after finishing setting me up in the room - I was 5 cm and 100% effaced! Taitia had arrived during the check-in process and was so helpful in getting me through the contractions that were stacking on top of themselves...and being with me while Andrew ran home to get our bags! In the meantime, the anesthesiologist came in to give me an epidural. At first, it only numbed my left side but once they rolled me on my right side & gave me a little extra boost, I could FINALLY relax.

About an hour and a half later, my nurse came in to check me and announced that it was time to push!! First she had to get the doctor to break my water since they hadn't broken yet. When they did, they found that the water was slightly tinged green by meconium which could mean that the baby was under stress. It's a good thing that we were ready to start pushing because he needed to get out sooner rather than later. She had me do about 5 sets of practice pushes and had just started on the 6th set when she suddenly told me to stop - it was time to get the doctor. It took about 15 minutes to get the room arranged, the extra nurse (who recorded "minutes" of the event? Hospital policy, I suppose) and of course, the doctor situated. I pushed twice with the next contraction and his head was out. She unwrapped the cord from around his neck and had me push one more time and he was out!