I wanted to make sure I got this birth story typed up as quickly as I could, I don’t want to forget any details of the most important event of our lives! Saturday, December 3, 2016 started out like any other normal day. I was a day past my due date and feeling good. Well, as good as one can feel when they are 40 weeks and 1 day pregnant and ready to evict the baby! It was funny because on her due date, I drove Chris to the doctor because he caught a nasty bug at work and did some grocery shopping. I remember people stopping to say “Oh wow you look like you are about to pop, when are you due.” And my response was a smile with “today.” They always looked immediately nervous, like my water was going to bust all over their floor. Haha! I knew she wasn’t coming out on her due date. I woke up knowing I would be pregnant for at least another day.
Anyways, back to Saturday, December 3. The day started like a normal Saturday. I felt pretty tired, but I got up and did some things around the house. I felt a few contractions but that was the new normal for me each morning and I didn’t think much about it. Around noon, I started to notice the contractions were still there and starting to come about every 12-15 minutes apart. I told no one. I wasn’t going to jinx this! Right before the SEC Championship started, I mentioned to Chris that I had been having contractions the last few hours and I was going to try and hold out the entire game, but that this might be the real deal.
The game went on and my contractions started getting really strong and painful. and closer together!!! When forth quarter started, I got up and packed the last minute items in our hospital bag and really started tracking the time between each contraction. They were anywhere from 3 and a half to five minute apart and it had been about an hour and a half of that. Time to call the doctor!!!
I called the after hours line and told them what was going on. They told me that my doctor was actually the one on call (Yay!!!!) and that she would be calling me shortly. I answered the phone to “OMG are we going to have a baby tonight?!?! ” My doctor was just as excited as I was! She told me that she would meet me at the hospital!
We packed up the car and I handed Chris the keys. It was his first time driving my car and I am pretty sure he never went over 70 MPH the entire way. He called his sister and his parents, and I had texted my sister a few hours ago to let her in on my contractions but texted her to let her know we were in fact in route to the hospital! I then texted my mom and dad and let them know too, but said that I would text them all when I was getting admitted. I didn’t want them all driving an hour down there for a false alarm.
When we got to the hospital, we were taken back to triage right away and I signed what felt like an encyclopedia of paper work and got checked. You guys…I was only 1 cm dilated. What?!?! They hooked me up to the fetal heart monitor and the contraction monitor and told me to hang out for a few hours there and see if I progress any. I was so scared they were going to send me home and I didn’t want to go all the way back there!!!
After a few very painful hours, they came back to check me and I still hadn’t progressed any but they could see how intense and quickly my contractions were coming so they called my doctor who said to go ahead and admit me.
Chris’s parents and sister had gotten to the hospital shortly after us and had been out in the waiting room the entire time, so I was just glad to get a room so they could come back with us too. My family all arrived shortly after we were admitted.
Around midnight (I think maybe after??) my doctor decided that my body had enough of the pain and went ahead and ordered my epidural. Why anyone wants a natural birth without one is beyond me. I wasn’t trying to be a hero, there is modern medicine for a reason and I was in so much pain my entire body was shaking. I was so thankful for the magical relief!!!
At that point, they let our family come back in to say goodnight to me, they wanted Chris and I to get some rest. My sister, mom, dad and MIL stayed in the waiting room the entire night and never left the hospital. I remember when the nurses came in to check on me every 20 minutes or so that I would wake up feeling super guilty that they were out there just waiting. My doctor had come in at one point and broke my water and started me on pitocin.
While the pitocin was starting to work to progress me along quicker, it was also causing Zoe’s heartbeat to drop during each contraction.
Around this time, my doctor was going off duty and another doctor was coming on. I knew I was still in good hands, so I was ok with that. I loved the other doctor too and was thankful it was him if it couldn’t be mine.
When the new doctor came on, he decided to perform an amnioinfusion, which pumps fluids back in to me because he felt that since my water broke, there was pressure being put on the umbilical cord somewhere or it was wrapped around her neck…and he wanted to see if that would help. This was sometime between 5-7am.
Stay tuned for part two…
