So over the next couple of days, I'm going to post more information on Olivia's birth. Most of it is so I can remember all the details, but enjoy if you are at all interested in reading...
The past few weeks have been increasingly more uncomfortable for me, and I was starting to worry that she would never come. Every time I went to the OBGYN’s office, my doctor would ask me if I was seeing any of the signs that we had talked about that labor was approaching. Every time I had to say no, the only sign was my increasing frustration that I was going to be pregnant FOREVER!!
On Tuesday, August 4 we saw the doctor again and, although I still was not feeling any signs of impending labor, I was happy to hear that I was 2 centimeters dilated, and 70% effaced! My doctor thought that it was extremely unlikely that I would go past my due date (August 13).
While I was at work on Thursday, a co-worker suggested that I eat a pizza from a local place called Café Trio that apparently can induce labor. Hey, I was up for anything, and it was really good, as well, although I finished the day at work with no signs, and was really doubting that I would have a baby before I needed to return to work the following Monday. I actually promised that if the baby came over the weekend, I would throw a party at work when I returned!
Thursday night I started having some pretty nasty pains in my stomach. I was pretty sure I was having contractions, so I started to time them. One lasted 20 minutes, which seemed strange to me. Sparing the details, I found out a few minutes later that it was not a contraction, and just bad gas. However, later that night, I did start to feel some contractions. Again, there was no consistent frequency or duration, so Jeremy and I made sure that we at least had everything together in case we needed to make a trip to the hospital that night. Since it was pretty late, we decided to try to get some rest. The contractions were pretty painful, although not that frequent, and I wasn’t getting any sleep. However, at 3 am, they essentially stopped, and I slept for the rest of the night.
We had another appointment with the OBGYN on Friday, August 7th. He was happy to hear of my experience the previous night, and mentioned that I was in the beginning stages of pre-labor. I had progressed to 3.5 centimeters dilated, and 90% effaced. My doctor thought that there was a good chance that the baby would come sometime over the weekend. As Friday progressed, I continued to have contractions, although they were essentially only in my back (and very painful). However, the contractions slowed, and by the evening, they seemed to have stopped. I started to feel a little frustrated that once again, she was never going to come, and I was just going to be stuck in a lot of pain.
After sleeping well for several hours, I started to have contractions again that were making it difficult to sleep. Around 3 am I went downstairs because I was so uncomfortable, and dozed in the recliner for several hours. By 6:30 am I was in enough pain, and the contractions were frequent enough, that I was not sleeping. I decided that I would just try and keep myself occupied and as comfortable as I could be until they came frequent enough to head to the hospital. By 7:30 am, the contractions had become strong enough that I was having a hard time coping with them by myself. At that point, I woke Jeremy up and made him keep me company. He also started to time the frequency and duration of the contractions. We were having a hard time interpreting them, because I would have a really strong one that lasted 45 seconds, with another that came 6 minutes later, to having a pretty mild contraction that lasted 10 seconds, with another one that came 10 minutes later. We decided that we would wait until 8:30 and document the frequency and duration, and then decide if it was appropriate to head to the hospital.
By 8:15, the contractions hadn’t exactly become consistent, but they were starting to get so strong that I wanted to head to the hospital. The hospital is only a couple minute drive from our place, and it was really amazing how much the contractions progressed in the time it took us to get there. By the time we pulled up, they were so strong and coming so often that I had to sit down in the hall of the hospital and Jeremy had to go find a nurse. The staff was so wonderful, though, to get me to a room quickly and get me comfortable. Within a few minutes of getting into a room, I was already hooked up to lots of machines, my doctor had been called, and I was getting an epidural.
Once the epidural was in place, the nurse checked me to see how dilated I was. She had a funny look on her face, and then asked me how dilated I was at my last visit. I was worried that she was going to say that I wasn’t dilated at all. She then said that she wanted to get another nurse’s opinion, but that she thought that I was 8 centimeters dilated. The other nurse confirmed this, and they both scolded me for not coming in earlier :)
Thank goodness the epidural kicked in quickly, although it took a while to get the medicine flowing equally to both sides. I was still feeling the contractions in my back on the left side, but once we had those taken care of, I was so much more comfortable. I had some difficulty for a while, I got really nauseated again and threw up, and my blood pressure was pretty low (around 60/40). By 12:30 pm, I had progressed far enough that it was time to start pushing. With how quickly my labor had gone, we thought that I would push for maybe an hour, and would soon be able to eat lunch (I was starving)!
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