I went in for my 36 week doctor's appointment on Thursday, September
26- my appointment was in the morning and my friend Allison had her 29
week appointment that same day with the same doctor, but in the
afternoon. My doctor, Dr. Meritt, was on-call at the hospital, so I
either got to wait an hour or come back later in the afternoon. As I
had work scheduled for the afternoon, I just chose to wait. When I
finally got to see Dr. Meritt, I had many complaints, especially with
the PUPPPs (so so much itching!) She basically let me decide if I
wanted to be induced or not- that was basically the only way to get rid
of the itching- and I would be 37 weeks on Saturday. I decided, very
emotionally, that I would stick it out for another week, but would call
her if I changed my mind. I really wanted the itching to stop (it was
SO bad!), but I knew that it was better to keep my baby boy inside as
long as possible. And for me, being induced meant that I would most
likely need an epidural though I really wanted to try labor naturally.
Once Dr. Meritt walked out of the room, I started bawling- so many
emotions! But less than a minute later, Dr. Meritt knocked on my door
to see if she could come back in. I finished changing super quick and
wiped away my tears. She asked me to sit down and take a deep breath
because there was a change in plans. The protein in my urine was high
and my blood pressure was higher than usual as well- both pointing to
preclampsia. The plan was for me to start being induced on Sunday night
at the latest. She needed me to get some blood work right after my
appointment and start a 24 hour urine sample. If either showed up high,
I would be induced Friday or Saturday instead. So, up I went to the
3rd floor to get my blood work, while making phone calls like crazy to
family and to my work. If I was going to have the baby on Sunday at the
latest, then I wouldn't have time to see therapy kids on Thursday or
Friday. And I would need all of them to start with the substitute
therapist 3 weeks early!
On Friday, my blood work
came back fine, but I was still working on my 24 hour urine sample. I
basically spent the whole day getting work things settled. On Saturday,
Nathan and I went around running errands, trying to get everything
ready to bring home a baby the following week. Ah! So much to do! By
the afternoon, I was debating if I should attend the Women's Conference
Broadcast for my church when I got the call. It was from the nurse
saying that the protein in my urine was exceptionally high and that I
needed to go to the hospital to be induced that evening. Nathan was at
the store, but his lovely sister Camberley was there when I got the
call. Once I hung up, I started bawling again- so so many emotions! I
wasn't ready for this! I thought I had more time to get things
together. I wanted to progress in labor naturally. I wasn't dilated at
all and only the smallest bit effaced, so I knew it was going to be a
long journey to get my baby out. I called Nathan once I calmed down,
and he was almost home. For the next hour, we threw together everything
we wanted for the hospital, and I ate something light. My good friend
Audrey called to see if I wanted to car pool to the church broadcast and
instead was amazing and got some things for us to help prep for the
baby. Camberley was left with strict instructions to make some cookie
dough to bring to the hospital once I had the baby for me to eat. :o)
And off Nathan and I went to the hospital.
We got there
around 7 pm. I got some meds to help me with being more effaced around
9 pm, and basically I was going to be pumped with the meds all night
long to help get things started. It wasn't super comfortable, but we
got a pretty good night's sleep.
The next morning, the
nurses checked on me at 9 am, 12 hours after we started the meds, to see
if I was more effaced or dialeted. Unfortunately, I was only 2 cm
dilated and 20% effaced. So they started the pitosin to get labor
started, with me knowing it was going to be a long day... they checked
me around 11 am and I was only 2.5 cm and 50% effaced. They went ahead
and broke my water at the time. I still hadn't progressed much an hour
later, and the contractions were getting intense! I knew I wouldn't be
able to get through the long day ahead of me without some pain meds, so I
requested an epidural around 12:30 pm. About that time my blood
pressure was spiking super high, and the nurses were going to give me
some meds to help it lower. But since I wanted an epidural, they said
that would lower it enough that I wouldn't need any meds. Though I
wanted to try a natural labor, I really think getting the epidural was
the right call for me in this labor. I was induced, wasn't progressing
because it was a lot of pain, and my blood pressure was getting into the
dangerous zone. The meds fixed all of these problems- I was in happy
medicine land by 1:30 pm and slept for the next couple hours.
Playing bananagrams while the pitosin is doing its thing.
When
I woke up, around 6:00 pm, I started feeling like I had to go poop super bad, which is
the sign that you're ready to push! I told the nurse how I was feeling,
and it took her a bit to get everything ready to just check on how I
was progressing. When she did check, I was ready! 10 cm, effaced and
everything! The nurse turned off the pitosin and started getting things
ready for me to push. I waited for an hour for them to get everything
set up while trying to not push. By the time they were ready, I no
longer had the need to push feeling and the contractions were gone.
Apparently turning off the pitosin made it so I didn't feel the
contractions just enough to know when to push. Awesome. So then
followed the hardest 2.5 hours of my life. They kept on telling me to
push and coaching me on how to do it. I had no motivation to do so, and
quickly tired. The nurses kept on telling me that my baby was so close
to coming out and I just needed to push a little bit more. Bah! Liars
all of them! I might have called them liars at one point... but 2.5
hours is not soon to me! I tried listening to the playlist I made for
labor, but that only helped for an hour or two. Nathan tried to help by
counting the pushes, but he counted slowly and made me mad. So he was
fired from that job and stuck to holding my hand and talking to me while
I pushed.
Suddenly, after 2 hours of pushing, I felt a
snap, like a rubber band changing suddenly from being tight to being
loose. Apparently I tore during all the pushing, but then in just
another push or two, my baby popped right out- born at 9:16 pm! They placed him right on
top of me, and wow! I was in complete awe and surprise that he was
inside of me the whole time and now he was out! Nathan cut his
umbilical cord like a champ, and we had our little baby boy with us! We
decided that he was our Simon within the first couple hours of life,
and he has been such a joy since! We love him so much, and are so
grateful to be his parents and that he's in our little family!
First picture with mama!
Getting cleaned up, complete with mohawk!
First picture with Daddy!
Still getting cleaned up!
Another picture with mama!
Going home! Yay!
