Taggie Tales: October 2010

For those who are interested, here is our birth story :)

Tuesday, Sept 21st, I had my weekly prenatal appointment. I was 39 weeks and 3 days pregnant and I felt like a ticking time bomb! The appointment was pretty quick and I was still only 1 cm dilated, 0% effaced and Jacob was sitting very high. Meaning....nothing is happening any time soon. Well, I asked my OB if she thought it would be a good idea to strip my membrane to see if that would help get labor started. She agreed it was a good idea so she did it. WOW did it hurt. It took me to 2 cm dilated. So we had some progress. But just in case we went ahead and scheduled my induction for the next Tuesday. We also thought we would make it to the induction day because I have had NO contractions my entire pregnancy.

Dan was taking Step 3 while I was at the doctor. We got done about the same time and decided to go to firehouse for lunch. It was yummy! I got to have Root Beer which I think was my "craving" while pregnant. The rest of the day we just rested and made plans for our time together before Jacob came. (We were pretty sure we were going to make it to our induction date so we made some plans to get out and about)

Wednesday, Sept 22nd, rolled around and I decided to start cleaning. Dan promised that he would help clean and get things together once he was done with his test. So I took advantage. Well, in addition to cleaning I was having contractions. We didn't think much of it because contractions are one of the side effects of membrane striping. They were also very erratic contractions and tapered off by the end of the day. But they were also enough for us to get our hospital bag completely done (toothbrush and all) and next to the door ready to go! We got done with the day and headed to bed.

Thursday, Sept 23rd at 1am I awoke to a "lovely" contraction. A couple minutes later I had another and they just kept coming. We started timing and they were anywhere from 3 to 8 minutes apart. We called the hospital to see if we should come in and they said yes. Well, I hopped in the shower real quick. It felt nice to get cleaned off and it helped calm the contractions.

We headed to the hospital at about 2:30am Thursday morning. We got checked in and we headed back for an exam. We weren't sure at this point if we would be admitted but I really hoped we would be because the contractions were painful. They checked me and I was 3cm dilated. Not enough at this point to be admitted :( They gave me two hours and they were going to check again to see if I made any progress. We got up and walked up and down the hall ONCE! That was enough for me, the contractions were to much to handle and seemed to come more frequently if I walked. We got back to the room and got settled. I was just laying there watching the heartbeat monitor and chatting with Dan. We had been there about 30 minutes at this point and I suddenly felt a POP. I said "Dan, I think my water just broke". We called the nurse and they tested it to make sure I wasn't just peeing on myself! LOL Sure enough, my water had broke. Looks like we are going to stay after all. A couple nurses came to get me and I asked "Do you want me to walk to the room?", at that point they said yes. I stood up and gush! Water everywhere. They then decided to put me in a wheelchair. Again, a different position and another gush! Then they decided rolling me on the bed was the best option :) I thought so too. All the contractions made it hard to walk anyway.

We also found out when my water broke that I had meconium in my water. This is because baby Jacob had his first bowel movement inside the womb. Not the best news in the world but something that can be managed. (Later it turned out to not be a problem at all as he did not inhale any of the meconium)

We got to the room at about 3ish. I was breathing through the contractions and they were tough. We decided it was time for the epidural. Good thing the guy was busy doing an epidural in another room!!!! (Joking!) So, we had to wait. He came and the epidural was pretty painless. I was expecting MUCH worse. The contractions were a million times more painful then the epidural. Once it kicked in, I felt soooo much better. Now we wait. And wait. And wait.

My contractions were very inconsistent so they started me on pitocin to try and get them stronger and more consistent. I was on a low dose of pitocin all day and it didn't seem to be working. There was a shift change and we got a new set of doctors and nurses. I was really sad to see my day nurse go because she was amazing but we in turn got an amazing doctor. So it all worked out. The new team decided to increase my pitocin little by little to get the contractions closer and stronger. It started working.

The day went by surprisingly fast. My mom and Dan's mom flew in the same day. Both were at the hospital by about 4pm. At this point I was still having inconsistent contractions so they had made it in time for the birth!

I was VERY thirsty the entire day. I have been so used to drinking so much water for the past nine months that all I could think about was drinking a huge glass of ice cold water. Popsicles and ice chips weren't doing the trick.

It was about 11:30 pm Thursday Sept 23 and I was finally 10cm dilated and fully effaced. We were ready to begin the pushing process. Pushing is really hard when you can't really feel much. But I pushed and pushed....even though I had no idea if I was pushing or not! LOL We were making some progress. The doctor stepped out of the room to check on another patient and we continued to push...Me, Dan and the nurse that is. It didn't take to long before I started to be able to feel Mr. Jacob. That made it so much easier to push. The nurse got the doctor back in the room because we started moving much faster then anticipated. Everyone got dressed and ready for Jacobs big day. 40 minutes (and 23 hours of labor) later I delivered Baby Jacob at 12:10 am Sept 24th Friday morning.

Since I had meconium in my water, the NICU was in the room ready to suction Jacob and check him out. So, as soon as he was born he had to be taken over to be worked on. This isn't what I wanted but I knew it was best. Breathing in the meconium would be very very bad and I didn't want to take the chance. The NICU team worked on him and came to the conclusion that he has not inhaled the meconium and was doing just fine. I was very happy to hear that. But I still had not seen my little boy. Eventually they handed him over and we got to bond.

It was an amazing experience! I will remember it forever :)