Most of the day Saturday I was contracting, but that had been the norm for the past 4weeks. We got the house cleaned up in the morning and headed out to do some errands in the afternoon. Unfortunately, some or our errands did not work out, so we headed to dinner a little bit early. The entire time I was in the car I was in pretty horrible pain, but that was not unusual either, it had been like that for awhile. We went to Brick Oven for dinner, and I had no relief while we were in there. I had to keep standing up because the contractions were really painful.
We headed home and had been there for awhile. I was just trying to relax. Contractions were still happening, and they had been regular but that was "the norm" for the past few weeks as well. We decided to run to the store to get some hydrocortisone cream for my poor, stretched out, itching and burning tummy. I was going to ride in the car with Stephen so that Noah would hopefully fall asleep on our quick trip. I had been laying on the bed, and when I stood up so we could go I felt a big gush of fluid. I told Stephen that I either just peed my pants or my water broke. When I checked, all that I saw was blood. That was one of the most scariest moments in my life. I hurried to change and had Stephen call Labor and Delivery to ask them if a lot of blood was normal when your water broke, because with Noah my water didn't break on it's own so I really didn't know. They basically told us we needed to get to the hospital asap. We called my mom to meet us there to pick up Noah, called Stephen's parents to let them know what was going on and to ask his mom (who is a former nurse) her thoughts on what was going on. Stephen turned on the hazard lights and we flew on the highway to the hospital.
Once at the hospital they hooked me up to monitor me. I was still bleeding a little. Baby sounded/looked good. They didn't check me because they didn't know what was going on, and didn't want to cause any problems. We waited for the ultrasound tech to get to the hospital, and once she was there I was wheeled down for an ultrasound. Fortunately, neither of the things they were worried about had happened. They were worried that my placenta was trying to come first (and I had had partial placenta previa earlier on so that could have been a valid worry), worried that it was tearing away from the uterus, which is an abruption (which could be fatal for both mother and baby). Everything looked good, so I was wheeled back up to be monitored for another hour or so. There was even talk of sending me home, depending upon what my contractions were doing. (Are you kidding me? I just gushed a bunch of blood and you want to send me home?!..I was not happy with that possible outcome!) ..They still aren't sure what caused the bleeding. Their guess was just cervical change.
After the hour was up, they said I would be admitted because I was in labor. (Thank goodness! I would have been upset being sent home!) So I was admitted. Contractions continually got more painful, and I got my epidural around 3 a.m. After the epidural my contractions seemed to drift a bit farther apart, so they broke my water around 7:30 a.m. My contractions were still strong, but not getting as close as they hoped, so after 8ish they decided to start pitocin. My epidural was starting wear off a bit, and the nice nurse "reminded" me of my "magic button" that I could push for more medicine. The wonderful (and I mean that sarcastically) anethesiologist didn't mention the button I could push to up the medicine. The first time I didn't push the button hard enough and it didn't administer more, and the second time I pushed it too late. I was worried to push it too often, because with Noah I was so numb it took forever for me to be able to be moved off the L&D floor, so I didn't push it enough. I couldn't feel contractions in my stomache, but I could feel pretty much everything that was going on elsewhere.
After awhile I could feel a ton of pressure down below, and I could feel my body pushing on it's own. I called in my nurse because I felt like I needed to use the bathroom. She checked me and informed me that it was not needing to use the bathroom, but the baby was there and ready to come. She started getting the room ready, paged the doctor, and at about 9 I started pushing. Twenty (or 19 if you want to get technical) minutes later, baby boy was born!
It was a long night. I expected this birth to go faster than Noah's, and his went pretty quickly, but boy was I wrong. ;) But the important thing was that all was well, baby boy was healthy, and there were no complications!
I didn't expect him to be as big as he was, infact I never thought I would have a baby bigger than 6 lbs. I knew he was bigger than Noah, but I did not expect he would be a healthy 7 lbs., 6 oz. and 20 inches long! He came exactly the same time Noah did, 11 days early, and infact they were both due on the date of the 24th (just different months), and obviously both came on the 13th. So crazy!
Baby's name was not decided until we were about to walk out the door when I was being discharged HaHa.
As a side note, Stephen was being his usual, hilarious self and cracking up the nurses working in L&D that night. First he asked for a pair of socks because he didn't put any on during our quick dash to the hospital, so they gave him some nice hospital socks..which he had to wear on their own because he couldn't get his shoes over them. He had been joking around with them about changing the clocks (daylight savings) in all the rooms for them, that he would put on a gown and go into everyone's rooms and do it. One of the nurses told him he had free reign of the drawers with the gowns, and she told him where they were, so sure enough he put one on over his clothes and walked out around in the hall in the gown and his lovely socks. I could hear the nurses at the desk totally crack up when he first walked out.
Though I was uncomfortable and tired, he definitely made things more lively and fun! ;)
2 comments:
So glad that things went so well! He is a cutie! We will have to come down and see him - and you guys!
congrats on the new addition! He is beautiful.
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