Here is my birth story...it may contain too much information...
Monday, October 27 I had my weekly ob appointment. They checked my blood pressure and weight (I gained 4 pounds in a week) and sent me on my way. Everything was fine with baby and so I was good to go. I had intentions of doing a lot of things on Monday but I was exhausted from our long exciting weekend (Rusty got married). I decided that I could just put off those items until the next day. Around 8pm my contractions started to get more painful and I noticed they were frequent; we decided to time them. I sat on my yoga ball. I happily watched TV and timed contractions. 9:04 my water broke. I was sure of it. Either that or it was a lot of urine. I called my mom and then called the ob. She told us to go ahead and go into the hospital. Off we went. When we got there she checked me and I was only one cm dilated and 60% effaced. They tested my water and said I needed to go home that my water had not broken. I was so utterly confused because I was still leaking.
We went home and I remembered what Dr. Angus said about "true labor". Take 2 Tylenol, drink 24 oz of water, take a shower and go to bed. True labor would continue, false labor would be "cured". I took his advice and around 2:30, I went to bed. I was up at 4 with some pretty painful contractions that did not go away; they were coming every 4 minutes. I called the OB again and by 6 we were readmitted. I was checked and was almost 3 cm at this point. I was exhausted so I was given a shot to help me sleep for a few hours. I slept for about 3 hours. Of course, the contractions woke me up. I labored all day long. I did not want the epidural at all. My labor and delivery nurse, Kathy, was amazing. She was so respectful of my wanting no medical intervention unless it was necessary. The OB came in with a portable ultrasound machine to check my water. Sure enough, I was right and it had broken. Conner's head had trapped 2 small pockets when he descended into the birth canal so it didn't all come out but she was not going to be able to break it. Around 3 Kathy came in to tell me that my contractions had become too spaced out and they wanted to give me pitocen. I told her that I didn’t want it b/c I knew I was too exhausted to deal with the painful contractions that pitocen causes. I told her that if it was necessary to have the pitocen then I wanted an epidural too. I knew I didn’t have the energy. All I knew was that I felt like I needed to push. She called for the anesthesiologist and in he came. She was about to check for progress when he came in. We decided to wait and he did his thing and then she checked. I was at 10cm ready to push. I was so pissed at myself. I found out that I wouldn’t be able to deliver right away because the ob was in another delivery. The epidural was working so I took a 45 minute nap. It was what I needed to push. The ob came in and they turned off my epidural. I pushed for an hour and there he was. During the pushing, his heart rate deceled twice and she had to tear me to get him out. The cord was wrapped around his neck. The nursery staff looked him over and he was great. He didn’t cry the way they wanted him to but eventually they got all of the mucus out and he showed them his screaming abilities.
We stayed at the hospital for 48 hours. They wanted to monitor Conner's blood becuase my water had been broken for so long. We were very happy to come home.
Here are a few pictures
after 21 hours of labor
with daddy
with Harley
