My doctor was going to be out of town from when I was three days late until I was seven days late, so we were discussing scheduling an induction (as an eviction notice for baby) either at 2 days late or eight days late. I decided to wait until eight days late to see if I would go into labor by myself since I had to get induced with my first two babies and wanted to see how the experience would be different if I waited.
My parents came into town when I was three days late (I was due March 10, so they came on March 13, a Saturday). I was thinking it would be ideal to go into labor five days late (the following Monday). That would give us a few days with them before baby comes, but not too late either. On Sunday night/Monday morning I started having consistent contractions that were anywhere from five min-10 min apart. It felt like contractions and cramping. I slept for about two hours from 10-12 then was awake all of Monday morning. I kept waking up Samuel saying I thought we should go to the hospital, but he encouraged me to stay home because they weren’t close enough together. I would get up several times to go to the bathroom and had a pad in and noticed that lots of mucus came out at one point, some of it stained red. Also had some “bloody show” as well as a little bit of fluid in the pad that looked a little brown. There wasn’t so much fluid that it seemed like my water broke, but there was more than I’ve had before so I was a little concerned as to what it was.
Once morning came, I called the hospital and talked to the nurses there and they said to only come in if my contractions started again (after six hours they stopped completely around 7 am, which seemed weird to me) or if my water broke. I tried to take a nap that morning but couldn’t sleep. In the afternoon, I went on a walk with my dad that was pretty uncomfortable but not toobad. I did feel off all day but figured it was hormones and lack of sleep or something.
Around 3 pm, I called back the hospital nurses and told them I wasn’t sure if my water had broken and that I had had a little more fluid than I thought was normal, but no consistent leaking. She said it didn’t sound like it had but that I could come in if I wanted some reassurance that everything was okay. Around 3pm, I decided to go in and make sure that it hadn’t broken.
I got to the hospital and they did a NST test on baby, everything looked good. I was only dilated to a 2 at that point, which was a little discouraging after having six hours of contractions that morning. Another doc, Mo Ferguson, was the OB doc on call and she did an ultrasound to see how the fluid looked as well as a speculum test of the fluid pooling in the vagina. She noticed there was hardly any fluid left in my uterus and that the brown fluid in my vagina looked like meconium, which would indicate that my water had broken. She pressed to know when I felt the first fluid come out, which I couldn’t answer because I had felt a squirt of liquid come out Sunday morning and in my pad it looked red and dark brown, but most of the fluid I had noticed seemed to have come out Monday morning. She said that I wouldn’t be leaving the hospital since they didn’t know when my water had broken.
It took a while to get me started on Pitocin (her recommend course of action). I did start having contractions again on my own at the hospital but they weren’t super consistent or hard so they still wanted to start me on Pitocin. It was a busy “OB” day at the hospital because another mom was laboring across the hall and the OB nurses were helping her. I had another nurse helping me who I didn’t like. She wasn’t very competent and I felt like she didn’t really know what she was doing. She started me on Pitocin and the baby’s heart rate dropped and they came back in and said that it wasn’t a good sign, basically. They needed to monitor her heart rate off of Pitocin to make sure she was okay and I said I wanted to get in a different position (they had me sitting in a bed which I just don’t like doing when I labor).
It took forever for them to get a good reading and she kept putting the monitor in weird places and not being able to pick up the heartbeat. Finally, another nurse came on the shift at 7 pm, and this nurse was very competent and knowledgeable and specifically OB. She had been working at the start of one of my other labors and I remembered liking her. She explained that if the baby didn’t respond well, there was a chance we would have to do a C section but so far the readings were fine and they started me on Pitocin again around 6:30 pm. They were consistent but not too hard so we started watching a show, “Father of the Bride II” because it was taking forever and I needed something to distract me. I was alternating between sitting on a birthing ball and standing at this point. They checked the dilation again around 10 pm and I was only at a 3 or a 4 which was also frustrating because after four hours of contractions and not sleeping since almost 24 hours before, I was really quite exhausted.
I decided it was probably going to be a long haul and that I wanted to get an epidural. Because it’s a small town here, it takes about an hour for them to call the anesthesiologist, have him come into work, get all his equipment, set it up, put it in, and have it start working. I figured by that point I’d be further along. While we waited, the doctor thought that I might have a secondary sack (part of the main sack had been basically pinched off by baby and formed a second sack that she predicted was between baby’s head and my cervix, preventing me from dilating faster). She broke the sac and then a big gush of water came out and contractions got really intense.
I got the epidural around 11:00 pm. They had me lying on my side and switching sides every thirty or so minutes. At one point, I think around 30 min after the epidural was effective, they checked me again and I wasstillonly at a 4 or maybe a 5. That was annoying because in the hour it took the doctor to get there, the contractions had really ramped up and were quite painful especially after breaking the second sac.
It was quite nice to have some relief with the epidural. My legs were totally numb and I did not like that I was now attached to a billion chords. Moving was laborious and awkward and they wanted me switching sides every thirty minutes. After about an hour, she went to switch me to my left side and all of a sudden I felt a HUGE painful crampy feeling low in my pelvis. I started asking why the epidural wasn’t working and that I was in a lot of pain and kind of started to lose it. She said to move so that I was over the top of the bed. I told them to call the epidural guy and say it was not working anymore and WHY!?
I kind of was delirius at this point and the nurse was confused at why it wasn’t working either. Then she said, “Well maybe I should check you?” and she checked my dilation and I heard her say, “OH there is the baby’s head! Oh wow, you’re at a ten” and she called the doctor, who was also surprised because it had progressed from a 5-10 in about thirty minutes or so. All of a sudden I felt like I had to push and the nurse was trying to say, “Ok the doctor is in the bathroom, hold off until she’s done” but I was crying and moaning and in a lot of pain. I tried to push laying over the back of the bed but the doctor said it might be better to go on my front with my legs up and so I moved to that position. I told her I was worried I wouldn’t be able to push well because, even though I could feel pain I didn’t know if I could push as effectively. I pushed once and she said, “Oh wow ok you’ll get her out in two more pushes!” and then I pushed and tried to focus my energy down below and then I was surprised to feel her whole body come out!
Of course it was the most indescribable feeling as they lifted that purple slimey baby onto my chest. One of my favorite feelings ever – one of relief, joy, overwhelm, gratitude. All her vitals looked great. I was grateful for the epidural for the after-birth stuff of pulling the placenta out, pushing my uterus, and stitching me up (I tore to a two or so, so not bad). She was born at 12:24 on Tuesday, March 16 morning. The doctor was amazed at how big and healthy she thought my placenta looked and kept saying she wanted to weigh it on the scale, haha. She said she’d never seen such a big one. We stayed in the hospital for another day and a half.
Clara has been with us five days now. We brought her home and the kids were at the grocery store with grandma when we got home. Grandpa got to hold her first and then the kids practically ran inside when they got home. I went out to meet them and give them a hug but Annie especially was superexcited. She was smiling from ear to ear and when she held her, bouncing her feet up and down in excitement. It was one of the sweetest moments! Then Heidi came to hold her and had an expression of surprise and delight to have her own real-life baby doll. She kept touching her hands and saying, “hands!” and the way she says “Cwara” melts my heart.
Postpartum is going well and predictably – kind of a crazy time always with engorgement, cramping (worse this time than with the other two – I even felt like I had a contraction earlier with the cramping), interrupted sleep, and unpredictability of baby feeding/eating, etc, but also so magical with those chunky cheeks and squishy face. I feel incredibly blessed to witness another life being born - a miracle largely out of my hands.
