I had been to see my midwife on the 18th of June for a weekly checkup and to have my group B strep test done. Everything looked good and with a quick ultrasound we saw that baby was head down -- good news! The next day after preschool we headed to the Connell's house for a play date. While Andrew and Aiden played with Joey and Piper, Courtney and I talked and attempted to make cheese. Around 2:30pm I started having a few very mild contractions which I believed were the same Braxton Hicks contractions I had been experiencing for the last few weeks. Courtney, having gone into labor herself at 36 weeks, urged me to start timing the contractions. I was having them 5 to ten minutes apart but they were not strong or regular. Still, I decided to head home and call Walter and my Mom to let them know to be prepared.
Walter came home around 5pm and with a little convincing we decided to have Bonnie come over so we could go to Labor and Delivery to get checked. We arrived at the hospital around 6:30pm and I was taken to a L&D room. The nurse hooked up monitors to my belly and checked my cervix to which we discovered I was dilated to 2 centimeters and was 50% effaced -- I was really having contractions! This was all very nerve racking and exciting at the same time. The doctor on-call and the nurse said that some baby's do great at 36 weeks so there was no reason to stop my labor and that they would would watch me for awhile and see how quickly I progressed. Hours later I had only dilated to 3 centimeters and with no regular contractions they decided that going home to sleep was probably the best idea. I was sure I would get no sleep but at midnight June 20we headed home.
Bonnie spent the night on our couch in case we had to leave suddenly during the night and we headed to bed. I woke up around 6am having contractions every 3 minutes or so, still not strong but pretty regular, so I decided to take a shower and see if they stayed around with some movement. I woke Walter up and he prepared himself once again to go to the hospital. After getting ready my contractions were still coming so we headed back to St. Als.
We arrived about 8am and I was admitted to L&D. This time I was sure it was the real thing and before long I would be holding my baby! They checked me and hooked up all of the monitors again; I was dilated to 5 cm, which meant there was some progress overnight but not a lot. At this point my mom was driving up from Salt Lake City, and the boys were with Granddad Clyde at the house (eventually relieved by Aunt Ann and Cousin Emma). After a little while we decided to break my water and see if that would speed things up, but for some reason it did not seem to do much of anything except my make my contractions painful enough that I had to focus and breathe through them.
We sat around for hours, Autumn even came to visit, all the while I sat at 5 CENTIMETERS! I think it was around 4 or 5 pm when I asked my nurse if there was anything we could do to speed things along. She had recently given birth to her third child and had been giving me useful advice all day long, so I listened when she said that third babies are notorious for being slow to arrive and that maybe we should try some pitocin. I have strong opinions about using drugs to intervene with labor but I felt a little desperate knowing once my water was broken the hospital only gave me so much time to have this baby. At the advice of my midwife and nurse I finally decided to get an epidural and start pitocin.
The pitocin wasn't doing much to make my contractions more regular, but they start with a pretty low dosage and work their way up. They checked me after about an hour (it was around 6 pm) and I was still stuck at 5 cm. Then maybe 30 to 45 minutes later I was joking with the nurse that I felt a lot of pressure in my bottom region so she checked me again. I was 9 centimeters dilated and the baby was right there! This was it!
The nurse called the midwife on call (my midwife had left for the day, of course) and began setting up quickly for delivery. I had Walt get out the camera and get ready. It all went so fast. I was told to try pushing and I remember pushing and thinking am I doing this right? and telling myself to focus, and the next thing I know a baby boy was on my chest! I was a mother all over again! He was so tiny, just a little peanut.
The NICU comes to the delivery room to check all babies born early. They had barely arrived when one of the nurses was not thrilled about his color, so she and the respiratory therapist from NICU took him to the warming bed to assess him and give him some extra oxygen. Walter was watching him closely and I was waiting to hear that he was good to go. They weren't saying much but I was getting more and more nervous. Finally, they decided he needed more help breathing and he had to go to the NICU for monitoring. It was heartbreaking to see him go but we were confident that he was in good hands and was going to be okay.
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