Oh, goodness... Where to start?...
In the days leading up to delivery, I was growing increasingly stressed and frustrated by the many contractions I was feeling with no progress and the due date drawing near as I became more and more uncomfortable with each passing day. Anxiety was getting unbearable and I was struggling to find ways to keep myself calm which became an all day task.
At my 38 week prenatal appointment, my doctor offered a
membrane sweep.
Stripping or sweeping the membranes: If your cervix is already somewhat dilated and there's no urgent reason to induce, your practitioner can insert her finger through the cervix and manually separate your amniotic sac from the lower part of your uterus. This causes the release of prostaglandins, which may help further ripen your cervix and possibly get contractions going.
At 38 weeks, there's a high chance it could do nothing. Since I barely felt any pain and was only 1 centimeter dilated (
really?! after 2 weeks of contractions?!), I figured that was going to be the case and I was probably going to end up seeing her again the following Friday (the day before the due date of Sept. 26) and talking about a scheduled induction which is not what I wanted at all. Still the battle of high hopes and practicality raged in my head.
I read that if 48 hours go by without labor starting, then the membrane sweep was a fail. Well... That Wednesday morning I woke up to the same mild contractions I had been feeling for 2 weeks, except the difference was that they were in the morning! And didn't go away when I changed position. Still, they were around 10 minutes apart and not very consistent, so I was trying not to get my hopes up too high.
I continued with my day like normal, working on an invitation order I received through
my etsy store. A friend of mine dropped off some glue I ordered from her and while we were chatting outside, I suddenly felt as damp between my legs as if I had been out in the hot sun running and sweating up a storm. Alarm bells were going off in my head,
Did my water just break?!, but I kept a very level head while chatting and tapered off the conversation so I could quickly run inside and check. This was around 4pm. I called Labor & Delivery and they wanted me to come in just to be on the safe side.
Turned out that my water hadn't broken (I believe it was the mucus plug), but I was most definitely dilating. At this point I was at 2.5 centimeters and stretched to 3 during another membrane sweep. At least something was working... The midwife was actually surprised to hear that my doctor was going to allow me to go to 40 weeks with high blood pressure. Apparently, it's procedure to schedule induction for 39 weeks. After deliberating and determining that maybe induction was not the devil after all, we scheduled it for Sunday, September 20th. I left feeling a bit better that an end was coming whether my body progressed or not.
The next morning, I awoke to continued contractions, though they felt a bit more intense. Again, I tried not to get my hopes too high and decided to work on my invitation order again. This became increasingly difficult as I was beginning the need to pause with each contraction. Eventually, I grew too uncomfortable to continue working and decided to rest and time them.
Around 1pm, the contractions grew much more consistent at 5 minutes apart and were finally around a minute long. After an hour of this, I called L&D (5-1-1 rule; "if you are having contractions every five minutes, each contraction lasts about one minute, and these minute-long contractions last for one hour, call the doctor or go to the hospital"). I could still essentially talk through the contractions, so their suggestion was that I wait it out a bit longer.
This continued until about 4, but with hardly any change. I was worried about a sudden rapid change/progression, so we left for the hospital. It was cute to see Peter freak out almost like you see in movies. He kept a level head, but I could definitely see it.
There we were at the hospital again. The contractions were finally showing up consistently on the monitor, though it was almost obvious they weren't that strong, but I was still very hopeful by this point.
A different midwife from the previous day showed up and did a check. 3.5... Are you kidding me?! All of this for hours and only a half a centimeter of progression? But it's actually getting painful now! Ugh! I was already upset, but the midwife pissed me off further by saying I didn't look like a woman in labor. Really? How would you know how I look?! I have a high tolerance for pain and am very good at hiding it! Whatever lady...
She did give advice to use imagery to help move things along and predicted we'd be back by midnight. Then why not admit me now?! She then suggested we could go for a walk for a couple hours then come back to be checked again. Ugh, ok, fine! We'll do that...
We decided to take advantage of a PF Changs gift card we had since it would, most likely, be the last opportunity we had for a long time. As soon as we were seated, we explained to our server that I was in labor, but not being admitted by the hospital yet, so we may have to dash out at a moment's notice and I will likely not be responsive at times during contractions. He was very nice and understood completely. It was cute to see him freak out a bit about it, too. He kept checking in on us to be sure we were still ok. We were able to enjoy our meal, decided to take our dessert to go because I was getting uncomfortable just sitting, and went for a walk around the mall. I had to stop and breathe through every contraction and after about 20 minutes of walking, I decided I didn't want people staring at me any longer (No dude in the big ass truck. I'm not bending over for your viewing pleasure. Please continue on your way.) and wanted to go back to the hospital to be checked. This was about 8pm.
Just around the corner from the hospital, I suggested we go home instead because I didn't feel much different and didn't want to go through triage again only to be disappointed and sent home again...
I showered, bounced on a yoga ball, rocked back and forth, and finally lay down to see if I could get some sleep. As suspected, I woke up for every contraction, but was able to get a little rest.
At about 10pm, there was a sudden shift in contractions. Ouch! They were definitely painful now and were spread around my entire belly! Very quickly it become, omg, I don't think I can handle this pain for much longer. This went on for another 2 hours before we finally left for the hospital again.
While there, the midwife we had seen on Wednesday checked me again which was super painful that time. She announced, "Third time's the charm. You're at a 5!" Yes! We were finally being admitted! Now, please do something about this pain!!
I tried an alternate pain management thingy (something tens) which was an electrical pulse that goes through my back and interrupts the pain receptors in the brain. It didn't work... By the time I arrived to the next room, I immediately requested the epidural. I was hoping Peter wasn't disappointed in me because he kept telling me how great of a job I was doing at handling the pain, but I was SUPER happy the moment it finally kicked in. I had to wait through a know-it-all nurse who wouldn't explain anything and a bag of saline before getting it, but I still do not regret it. This was maybe 2:30 or 3am and I was at a 6 by this point.
It took a while for the nurse to set things up (in the meantime we changed nurses because we didn't like the first), but once done they turned off the lights and suggested we get some sleep. This was at about 4:30am.
We drifted off to sleep, but were awakened to the nurses and midwife rushing in, turning the lights on and asking me to roll to my side because the baby's heart rate was dropping and my blood pressure had sky rocketed. I looked at the time to discover it had only been 5-10 minutes since we drifted off to sleep!
The midwife checked me again and said "The head is right there."
Still groggy, I said, "What does that mean?"
"You're having a baby!"
"Right now?! I didn't feel anything!"
In that short time, I had dilated to a 10, the baby descended, and the water broke.
I had warned the midwife earlier about my 10 minute delivery of my first child, so she waited until everyone was ready before having me "practice push." Of course, this practice push made the head crown already so she coached me through gently pushing the rest of the baby out. 5 minutes later, we heard a cry and Samus was placed on my tummy at 5:08am!
At that moment, I didn't care that she was still covered in amniotic fluid, blood, and mucus. I had forgotten that they mentioned there was meconium in the water. I didn't hear the apgar score. I even forgot that there was still the placenta to deliver. All I could see was her and Peter there next to me. And all I wanted to hear was her continued cry. She stopped crying a couple of times, which worried me, but she was just fine. She has 10 fingers and 10 toes. Yes, she's indeed a female. She has my nose! She's darker than I expected. She has lots of dark hair...
I had no tearing to speak of, so cleanup was relatively easy other than trying to collect enough cord blood for the donation we had set up. Her apgar scores (of which Peter heard) were 8 and 9 and the meconium didn't mean anything as far as her health. They just needed to be sure that she didn't swallow any of it on her first breath. She latched on to feed very easily and stayed there for over 20 minutes on each side. Everything was perfect.
