Most women I talk to tell me they were so worried about labor and delivery and it ended up being much better than they thought. My experience was the opposite. Having been in the hospital so many times, I really wasn't too stressed about this last leg of the journey...I guess ignorance is bliss. On Monday morning the week of Noah's arrival, I started having regular contractions. Knowing I was already dilated to at least 3 cm, according to my last check-up, I decided to wait a while and see what happened. By that afternoon, I called the doctor's office to let them know what was going on and see what they suggested. My contractions at that point were about 8 minutes apart, so they wanted me to head to the hospital. After going in and being checked, I was still a 3 and they wanted me to go back home and wait until I was further along. We were bummed but agreed that we didn't want to have to stay at the hospital longer than we needed to. So we headed home and did lots of walking & bouncing on the exercise ball. The next day my contractions were closer together and much more intense. Knowing this must be it, we called the doctor and they agreed that we should head back in. After being checked we were shocked to hear that I was STILL at a 3, even though the contractions were so much more intense. The doctor said that due to the coupling pattern of the contractions and a few other indicators he must be posterior which is why I wasn't progressing. She wanted me to go home and do a bunch of stretches to try and flip him. Of course we were bummed again, but after a lunch at Red Robin with the very anxious grandmas, we went home and started the stretching. I ended up with rug burns on my forearms from army crawling around the house for so long! But apparently it worked because the next morning I woke up with intense regular contractions and so we headed back to the hospital (for the 3rd time if you're keeping track). After another check, the doctor said my contractions were now about 4 minutes apart, they thought he had definitely flipped from posterior, but I STILL wasn't dilating! So again, they sent us home to wait it out! At this point, I had welled up with tears and I told Erik that I didn't want to come back until the baby was basically coming out because this process was really deflating me. The next morning, Thursday, I woke up at around 3:00am and oh boy, the contractions were in full force now. However, being that this would be our 4th time going to the hospital, I had no intention of jumping in the car anytime soon. So I decided to just walk around and wait it out. By 5:00, it was clear that the baby was on his way. But, I was still insistent that I wouldn't go back to hospital. That's the good part of having your mom and mother-in-law there, they wouldn't take no for an answer. They basically forced Erik & I out the door and said they'd be right behind us. When we got to the hospital, they checked me into a room and then had me walk around the hospital for 2 hours before they checked me. When I got back and they checked I was at a 5 with contractions every 2-3 minutes. At this point I was thinking, "Thank God! There's no way they could send me home now." Well, then the nurse says to me, "Since your water hasn't broken yet and the doctor would have to do that, it would technically be considered an induction and we're so busy right now, we really don't have time for any unscheduled inductions. So, we'll see what the doctor says, but be prepared to go home and labor more there." When she walked out of the room I told Erik that if they sent us home yet again, we would NOT be coming back. I couldn't do it one more time! Luckily the doctor said we were definitely staying but she wanted to get me an epidural, pitocin and break my water right away to try and get things progressing. She said she could tell how exhausted I was and didn't want to waste anymore time. After some typical IV drama (I'm a hard stick), a really rude nurse (who thank God was off at 5 and replaced by the best L&D nurse EVER!) and many hours later, my labor was finally nearing the end. Part of our birth plan was for me to "labor down". For those of you who don't know what this is, it's where they don't let you push at a 10. You have to wait until the baby is basically coming out on his own before you can push in order to limit the amount of pushing. I have a family history of brain aneurysm on both sides of my family, plus I have a personal history of strain induced migraines, so they wanted to be extra careful. Once I got to the 9-10 cm range, it was becoming more and more apparent that my epidural wasn't working. I kept pushing the magic little button but with no results. They brought in the anesthesiologist to give me an epidural bolus, but even that didn't work. Once I was at a 10 and the pain was out of this world, they had to bring him back for yet another bolus. It still didn't really work, and having to wait to push for about 2 hours while at a 10, I was definitely ready to just get this little man out already! Once they finally let me push he wasn't cooperating well. After a delightful episiotomy he came out with the cord wrapped around his neck twice and his arm up around his face. Turns out it was this arm situation that had kept him from descending the whole time. But at that moment, when they put him up on my chest at 11:45pm on February 10th, after 19 hours of labor, the whole world stopped. All that mattered was that my little Noah, my prince, had safely arrived. Erik and I were overwhelmed with joy and we knew life would never be the same.
