On Monday morning, June 14th, around 3:15am I woke up with a bad AF-type cramp. It passed after a few minutes and I fell back asleep. Then about 30 minutes later I had another one. That was the pattern for the day. A cramp every 30-45 minutes, nothing bad, just uncomfortable. So I was looking forward to my OB appt & NST because I thought for sure I would be more dilated or something. I even warned Kevin that I might be calling him after my appt and having him meet me at the hospital.
My appt was at 1pm. Dr. P was at the hospital with a delivery so I saw the on call OB instead. He was horrible. Let's just say that he wasn't the gentlest of doctors when doing the cervical check. I was still at less than 1 cm. The NST was okay. GV didn't really move that much but I had a couple of cramps while hooked up on the machine so I was able to see those and his reaction to them. Afterwards Wiki and I went to a couple of stores and then met Kevin back at the house for a late dinner. Before dinner, around 7pm, the cramps started to get more frequent and hurt a bit more. They were about four to five minutes apart. Wiki wanted me to call the OB but I wanted to wait. Since I hadn't had any Braxton-Hicks, I wanted to make sure these weren't them. I knew eating/drinking and lying down could help relieve them so we had dinner and afterwards I laid down on the couch. They slowed to around 8 minutes apart. But then the cramps changed to contractions. The pain was low (under the belly) but then would move around to my lower back. Plus they went to being 3-4 minutes apart. So finally around 10pm I called the OB. It was the same OB I saw in the morning. Grrr. But he did say that I should go in to the hospital. Kevin finished off the hospital bag and then we got in his car while Wiki drove my car.
Somehow my purse ended up in my car with Wiki so when we got to the hospital they wouldn't do anything because I didn't have my ID or insurance card. Kevin kept explaining to them that my sister had my stuff and the lady kept saying that I needed it before I could go to L&D. They accused Kevin of "freaking out" which he got really annoyed about. Finally Wiki showed up right when the L&D nurse did so she told them she was taking me back while Wiki finished off my registration. What was especially annoying was that I had pre-registered and gone in on Friday to finish off my registration (in case of induction) and they still wouldn't let me in until they saw my ID and insurance card and asked me tons of questions which I had already answered multiple times.
I finally made it to the room around 10:45pm. I got the first cervical check around 11:20pm and was 1-2 cm. They told me since I had made progress since my appt that afternoon that the on call OB said I could have an epidural as soon as I wanted. The pain wasn't that bad so I told them not yet. It wasn't that I didn't want an epidural, it's just that I had a fear of them sticking something in my spine. I knew the pain was going to have to be bad enough that the fear was negated. Anyways they gave me something that took the edge off but around 1am it wore off and I was ready for the epidural.
They let Kevin stay in the room with me but made Wiki leave. They did the first part of the epidural (where I think they numb you up) and then when the anesthesiologist tried to do the second part I got a shooting pain that wrapped around my left lower back. I yelled. They tried getting me to explain the pain and I couldn't very well. So he tried again and I yelled in pain again with the eyes watering up. He asked me if I had any back injuries and I told him no. He tried once more and this time it was more of a scream with tears falling. So finally he decided to try a different location. I didn't feel a thing this time. Later while I was thinking about it, I do have this thing with my back sometimes. If I'm sitting and I stretch sometimes I'll trigger a pinched nerve in my back (pain on the left side). So I think he found it. If I have more kids I'll have to find out which vertebrae they should not touch!
Shortly after the epidural (1:30am) they checked me again and I was 3-4 cm. At this point they told us we could get some sleep since we were just waiting for the dilation to happen on it's own. With the epidural in this was possible so we sent Wiki home and Kevin coverted the couch to a bed and settled in. The nurse came back around 3am for another check and I was at 5.5 cm. Then when the on call OB showed up at 6am they checked me again (boy was I glad for the epidural when he had to check me) and I was at 6 cm and GV was at -1 position. They decided to break the sac to help aid in dilation (figuring the pressure of GV on the cervix would help). Right after they broke the bag though I got hit with a sudden wave of nausea and my dinner came back out. It was the first time I lost any meal during this entire pregnancy.
Dr. P came in around 10am and I was at 7-8 cm. The nurse was guessing that I'd deliver before noon. But then the infection came. I got the shakes real bad and my temperature started rising. GV's heartbeat shot up above the normal range. They gave me oxygen hoping to bring his heartbeat back down but it wasn't doing anything. So they gave me some antibiotics and kept a close watch on GV. They also started talking about possibly having to do a c-section because of the infection but when they checked me again just before noon, I was at 9.75 cm but with an anterior lip. By this time Dr. P was around. They needed the lip to go away before I could start pushing. So we waited a bit and after about half an hour it was gone so I could start pushing. But then GV turned from being face down so Dr. P had to help him reposition. But in less than an hour GV was born. They placed him on me and Kevin and I got to say hello to our son. He was born at 1:20pm, 8 lbs 10 oz and 22.5 inches.
