On Thursday, September 2 I had an appointment with my doctor's midwife. On my way to work that morning I was having what I would describe as a couple very light cramps every now and then, but at the time it didn't really register that these were probably contractions because they were so light, and if anything I was thinking Braxton Hicks. At my appointment, the midwife told me I was already 90% effaced, 2 cm dilated, and -1 station. Throughout the day I continued to have very light contractions (1-3 per hour) but they did not get stronger, longer, or closer together. Matt's football team had their first game so the baby had strict instructions not to make a move til after 7. (However, at this point, I was not really cognizant of the fact that I was in the very early phases of labor.) When Matt got home we went on a walk. Still the contractions remained very light and infrequent.
Around 2:30 in the morning I woke up to go to the bathroom, only I didn't really make it all the way there before a little leaked out...or did it?! I woke up Matt to tell him I thought maybe my water broke but I wasn't sure. So I called L&D and they suggested that I come in to have it checked just to make sure. I felt a little silly because for some reason I was still convinced that if we went in they would send us home. On the way there I made Matt promise that he wouldn't tell anyone if they did send us home. I think I was talking myself out of it because I just couldn't believe it was really happening. That and it was happening so differently than I had imagined in my mind since I expected to wait to go to the hospital until I was having excruciatingly painful contractions every 5 minutes. But on the way to the hospital my contractions started getting a little stronger and were about 4-5 minutes apart, however, I guess you could say I still wasn't in the kind of pain I had expected. (Thank you Jesus! That's all I can say.) We got to the hospital around 4 a.m. and they took us to triage. The nurses confirmed that my water broke. At this point I was still only 2 cm dilated so I was thinking, wow it's going to be a while, especially since they wouldn't let me walk around due to concern about a prolapsed cord.
They moved us to the delivery room and I was still able to handle the pain, and talk through my contractions. I was about 4 cm dilated at this point. Sometime between 5 and 6 a.m. I went from 4 cm to 6 cm pretty quickly, and was having hard contractions. Matt was watching The Office on our Mac and it was the episode where Meredith was in the hospital. For some reason I absolutely could not tolerate watching the part where she was in the hospital and made him shut it off immediately. (I may not have asked nicely or been all that patient.) Time for the epidural, what an amazingly beautiful thing. After I asked the nurse, the anesthesiologist came in about 45 minutes. When he walked in, Matt asked if he'd ever had anyone give birth 20 minutes after getting an epidural....
Shortly after I got the epidural Emma's heart rate went really low, it was int eh 80's. There were several doctors in the room as they put me on oxygen and changed my position. Almost immediately after they hooked her up to the internal monitor, her heart rate went back up. I had to lay flat on my back to keep it that way until I started pushing. The next time the nurse checked me I was 9 cm. The doctor later said her heart rate probably went down because she swooped down so quickly given how fast I went from 6 to 9 cm.
Shortly after the nurse checked me again before she went to check on another patient and I was 10 cm and she said, "I'm going to go give my patient her meds and when I come back we're going to start pushing," but when she looked at something on the monitor she said, "actually we're going to start pushing right now." I started pushing, but Emma was still giving me about 4-5 minute breaks in between contractions so I was able to rest in between.
Sometime while I was pushing the midwife said, it's going to be a big baby, which took me by complete surprise because only weeks before my doctor had told me it was not a very big baby. Only later did we discover that it was because Emma came out with her hand by her face causing me to have some inner tearing and need a episiotomy. A small price to pay for our baby girl. 45 minutes to an hour after I started pushing, our sweet girl was born. (5 1/2 hours after we arrived at the hospital) She let out a strong cry, and I started crying too. I will never, ever forget that moment. I guess I was crying so hard, Matt wasn't sure if he should leave me, but I told him to go see the baby :) Later they laid her on my chest, skin to skin, and we had our first snuggle. Meanwhile, Matt called our family to share the joy of her birth.
We fell head over heals in love with Emma from the moment she came into our lives!!!
(Wow, that ended up being too long to go back and proof read...so there you have it.)
1 comment:
So so very beautiful...I am glad you shared it!!!
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