We'll start fresh with Day 1 of meeting Miss Ella Rose, skipping all the pregnancy stories. The pregnancy was actually mostly uneventful considering we had two miscarriages in the year before. I don't think I even had traditional "cravings;" I had desires for food, of course, but nothing that caused my poor husband to go to multiple stores, searching for an out-of-season item. So, yes. Fast forward through all that to the day before we met Ella.
Friday, August 22. I went to work like normal. I had a doctor's appointment with an ultrasound the day before, and nothing was showing up unusual. They said Ella was measuring in at 8lbs, 1oz which was around the 70th percentile for being at 39 weeks. We still had another full week to go until the due date, and I was feeling pretty decent most of the time. What was interesting about Friday was that I worked a normal full day, then went to the gym by myself. Usually, John and I go to a trainer together, which means that as I got more pregnant, he could take some of the focus off of me when I needed more rest than normal. But on Friday, he got tied up in a work emergency, so I went by myself and received the full attention of our trainer. And then, when I got home, the futon we ordered had arrived, so John and I put it together after dinner (not the easiest thing to assemble, that silly futon). I definitely remember a moment where I was helping pull two pieces into place so we could bolt them together, and I felt a small squirt 'down there.' It was nothing major, but I was laughing to myself that it would be funny if my water had just broken because of assembling this futon. Like how some people eat spicy food or go for a run to initiate labor, my story would be that I was assembling a futon. (Spoiler alert: It wasn't my water breaking, just a small little squirt).
So now we go to bed on Friday, tired after a long week and futon assemblage. I woke up Saturday morning at midnight feeling kind of rough, so I staggered into the bathroom, thinking that I had just waited a little too long for a bathroom break (that can really mess up a pregnant woman, in case you weren't aware). I do my business and go back to bed.... only to repeat this at 1am and again at 3am. By 4am when my tummy was still waking me up with uncomfortable feelings, I apparently groaned loud enough to wake John. He had already downloaded a contraction timer app on his phone, so he suggested we start tracking the feelings. They started out about a minute each, fifteen minutes apart, with some not-really-ignorable back pain as well. John was super great about rubbing my back as I rode out the waves, as well as keeping track of the timing.
After just an hour or so of contractions while we were still in bed, we decided that they were Not Kidding Around and not just little baby Braxton-Hicks. Once we got out of bed, I found that the intervals were much shorter between contractions and the intensity of pain was less as well. So we decided that I'd walk as much as possible to help decrease discomfort. We ate a light breakfast and then spent a few hours walking in the neighborhood before deciding on a change of scenery-- the bakery! Walkies AND some second breakfast! And away we headed to the local bakery at the edge of our neighborhood to get some snacks (now around 9am). There was a guy finishing up his order as we walked in, and his first comment to John was, "You need to walk that baby out." To which John answered, "We kinda are!" We slowly ate our breakfast yummies (chocolate croissant for me!), which meant that I had about three more contractions while we were in the bakery. Yes, I was fine. No, I was not dramatic, moaning and groaning like in a movie. But still, yes, it started to make the bakery girls concerned. One asked, "Can I get you anything? Like an ambulance?" We just laughed and tried to assure them that we were still several hours away from anything like that.
We just kept walking and tracking for most of Saturday morning. We found that when I was lying down, contractions were still about 15min apart; whereas when I was sitting, they were about 10min apart, and when I was walking, they were closer to 7min apart and much less painful. When we were averaging around 6-7min apart, we returned home to get another snack before deciding if it was now finally time to head to the hospital. We loaded our bags in the car (they had been by the door ready for a few days, despite our due date being a week away) and decided to risk the chance that the hospital would send me home for being too early in labor to be admitted. It was interesting that I was so concerned about 'wasting time' at the hospital instead of laboring at home because 1) we had already been in labor for about 8hrs, more if you start the clock when I was first woken up at midnight, and 2) my labor ended up being so long, that we were still at the hospital for about 12hrs more!
I had two contractions in the car while John was driving (not fun at all) and one more in the parking lot as well arrived. We left everything in the car to check in first, and as I was giving the nurse my name, I got hit with an "extra-spicy" contraction that made me a little nauseous. Nurses sure do move fast when you are leaning over their computers and say you are about to throw up! It also gets you into a room rather quickly. The first few contractions made me vomit some more, so no one doubted that we would be admitted today, but they still had to check my dilation progress before making it official. (Here's the part where I start to lose track of time. Go figure.) We had arrived at the hospital around 1pm, got taken to a triage room where we were checked in and asked to wait. I was already at 3.5-4cm dilated when we arrived, and after a couple hours, I had progressed to 6cm. This was good news and meant that we would soon be going to our own labor and delivery room.
The nurses were all impressed with my desire to have a natural childbirth (no drugs, yikes!) and were even more impressed that I was still walking up and down the hall at 6cm dilated. I'm still not sure if they were trained to tell all the natural ladies how awesome they are because they want to diffuse the crazy, or if going natural is rather rare nowadays and the nurses were indeed impressed. Either way, almost every nurse made a comment about how great I was doing. One nurse who was working with us the longest was upset that her shift ended before Ella finally came, and even our triage nurse came by later when her shift ended to encourage me some more! I think the labor nurses were great.
Stay tuned for the dramatic conclusion to come soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment