By Thursday night, contractions were getting a little harder, but we just followed our game plan and went to bed. When I woke up, Friday morning, still having mild contractions, I told Jason he should go ahead and stay home and go to my weekly doctor's appointment with me. We were pretty sure that the baby was going to come this weekend, so he was ok with that.
At the appointment, I was expecting the doctor to say that I was a lot more dilated, and that the baby would be coming soon. Instead, I heard that there wasn't any more progress. I was still dilated to 3 cm and 50% effaced. She suggested stripping my membranes. She said that if the baby was ready, it would get things started, but if not, it wouldn't do anything. Man, was that painful. I left a little discouraged. I had reached the point where it felt like the baby was never coming. I had officially reached the end.
We had promised the boys that we would go to Chick-fi-la after our appointment and I had scheduled a pedicure for the afternoon. After heading to Chick-fi-la and beginning to have several regular, more intense contractions, I decided to cancel my pedicure - because who wants their water to break at a salon? The boys had fun eating and playing, but I cut our time a little short. I was ready to get home and see if these contractions were going to make anything happen.
We got home, put the boys down for naps and began timing the contractions. They were 2 1/2 to 3 minutes apart. I knew the intensity wasn't right to go to the hospital yet, but we decided we should maybe come up with a plan for the boys incase everything progressed quickly. So we woke up 2 sleepy boys and took them over to my sisters house.
The plan was to still labor at home for a while to make sure this was the real thing, so on the way back, I decided it was time to start counting through contractions and practice our rhythmic breathing. This was a lifesaver when I had Silas. It think the only way I made it through the whole thing. So there we were rhythmically breathing through contractions when I spotted a cop on the highway. He must have spotted us going a little too fast too, because sure enough, he pulled us over. Yep, Jason got to use the classic line "My wife is in labor." I think we completely flustered the guy but he said he still need to run Jason's license just to make sure he wasn't a fugitive. He let us off by telling us "to slow down for me, and CONGRATULATIONS."
Back at the house we broke out the exercise ball, calming music and the contraction timer. By this point, contractions were getting much harder, but I was still laughing and talking between them. We carried on like this for about an hour. I was still very much in control and I knew I didn't want to go in until I was in full fledge labor. I took red raspberry tea leaf capsules again with this labor and had heard that it could make each successive labor shorter and shorter. I knew I didn't want to have the baby at home, so I told Jason we should probably go ahead and go to the hospital. Jason must have thought that I wasn't really ready to be at the hospital yet, because not only did he miss I-44 to get to the hospital, but he also missed the 32nd street exit. He claims it was because I was talking to him. Instead we got to take the scenic route through Saginaw.
We parked the car and made it back to the birthing center with only having to stop twice to breathe through contractions. The nurse gave us a room and the wonderful hospital gown to put on. I was pretty confident I wouldn't be going home, but you never know, so I was definitely anxious to get checked and fully admitted into the hospital. Once the nurse finally made it back, just after 5:30 pm, she checked and I was dilated to 6 cm and fully effaced. Woohoo! Baby time!
Luckily, my labor team was all there. After Silas' birth, I learned the benefits of extra hands and support. This time, there would have been no way I would have made it without Jason up by my head counting and calming me and my mom and sister massaging my hips! The red raspberry tea leaf capsules must have done their job because all my contractions were in my uterus! No back labor! We kept switching positions and finally landed on rocking on the ball, on my hands and knees, on the bed. This seemed to give the most relief with contractions. I kept telling the baby to go down.
Here's me trying to smile between a contraction. Note my nurse in the background. That happened to be her very last night ever as a nurse, as she was retiring. She was little more concerned about finishing paperwork than helping me deliver a baby : /
My doctor wasn't there for the first hour or so of laboring. I think she showed up closer to 6:30 pm. She check me and said I was at an 8. Not good news. I wanted to be ready to push. However, she suggested switching to sitting on the ball with wide legs because the position I was in wasn't opening up my cervix. The switch felt terrible at first, but after a contraction passed, there was a different sense of relief.
We worked through contractions in the position for a little bit when the doctor came back in to check again. I was 9.5 cm! Good news. Bad news was that she wanted me to gently push through a contraction to see if she could help me thin out to be complete. PAINFUL! EXCRUCIATING! I was ready to say lets go ahead and cut the baby out!
Too late! I was there and ready to push. I gave two small pushes because I wasn't sure I was really ready to push. And that's when it happened. My body decided it was ready to push and clamped down to do it. I just joined in. After two more pushes and lots of yelling a big ol' baby BOY slid out. Mom said he had a hand right up by his face that came out with the head. No wonder pushing was terrible. Luckily it wasn't very long. He was born at exactly 7 pm. He must have known I had something for numbers.
They put him on my chest and he quickly calmed down. We found out later just how big he was: 9 lbs 4 oz and 21 inches long.
We were in love. It wasn't until the next morning that we named him Ivan Jude. Ivan had been my top contender the whole time, but Jason wasn't sold on it. However, while I was pushing and getting fixed up afterwards he was making all kinds of promises to me. One was that we could name him whatever I wanted, and he might have promised a vacation to Europe. We wouldn't find out until later how fitting his name is: God has been gracious.
No comments:
Post a Comment