Birth Story and Thoughts

This will probably get long and I'm going to try to remember all the details.

When we started going to the weekly appointments our OB kept asking about inducing for convenience purposes. At first we all said that we didn't want to induce but the more we thought about it, we thought it sounded like a good plan so that we could arrange everything so the grandparents would be able to come down, and I could have a plan as to who would get my kids on or off the school bus and where they would stay if labor lasted over night.  After talking about it we finally agreed and scheduled it for Friday the 5th when the OB we liked would be on call. I made my last OB appt for Thursday afternoon and IM came down for that appt and then IF and all the grandparents came down later in the evening.  We all met for dinner that night and had a great time. 

Friday at 4am we all show up to the hospital and start to head up to the maternity floor when we are called back. The charge nurse wanted to talk to me.  Apparently they had tried to call my cell at midnight (though I had no missed calls) to tell me that they were running behind and our scheduled induction was being moved up several hours.  They had a ton of woman in labor on Thursday night and hadn't even gotten to the scheduled inductions from that night, they were all pushed up to Friday morning and we were bumped back now too.  Jesse and I headed home to try to get some sleep and IPs and family head back to hotel to sleep.  We were told to either wait for them to call so we could come back or to call by 10am and see what the status was.  We met for breakfast at 8:30 and I called back after we ate. I was told they couldn't give me a time frame at all now and to just wait.  We headed back to IP's hotel room and hung out trying to pass the time.  Around 9:45am the OB called to say they were just canceling us. They had gotten too far behind.  Needless to say we were all upset. IPs had paid for a hotel room for nothing and now they had to leave with empty hands when we were all expecting for baby to be born that day. 

Since they don't do elective inductions on the weekend our only option was to reschedule on Monday at the other bigger hospital or Tuesday at the hospital we were planning on delivering at, so they put us on for both days in case the same thing happened on Monday.  But the grandparents all thought that I would go into labor on my own over the weekend.  I wasn't convinced at all as I had been 1cm for 4 weeks with no change and at a -3 station, she was really high up and not moving down. 

On Saturday, I went to Target and bought one of those exercise balls and literally sat on that thing and bounced all afternoon and all evening.  We went to bed Saturday night and around 12:30am (Sunday) woke up to a little gush and quickly got out of bed.  I had a feeling this was my water breaking, but didn't want to get too excited yet.  I laid back down and about 10 minutes later got another feeling and I made it out of bed and to the bathroom and water was running down my legs this time.  I literally started laughing and woke Jesse up and told him my water broke.  This had been a running joke in our house for a few days now, every time I would wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, Jesse would ask me if my water broke, and every time I would tell him to go back to sleep.

I called IM to let them know what was going on and then called the OB office.  I was told to wait for contractions to start and if they hadn't by 8am to just head to the hospital.  IP's decided to pack up and head our way and got here around 3am.  We timed contractions together, paced, the guys slept off and on and chatted.  I really actually enjoyed that time that the four of us had together to just sit quietly and experience that together.  I was starting to feel the contractions an hour before IPs got here.  They never really got regular though and were anywhere from 4 mins-7 mins apart and not lasting very long. Around 6am I called OB again and was told to just come in. 

Got checked out and found out that I was 3cm now.  We all got settled into the delivery room, IV was started and the monitors were placed.  They weren't going to start pitocin yet, and said they would check me again in 2 hrs to see if anything was happening.  The next time they checked I was 4cm and had decided to just get the epidural because if they were going to do pitocin I would rather get the epidural before the pitocin.  I think I was 4cm around 9:30am, a small amount of pitocin was started and when the midwife showed up around 1:45pm and checked me I was complete.  After a few pushes she was born at 2:02pm.  We were all pretty surprised with how big she was. 

I don't think this whole experience could have gone any more perfect than it did.  I've had a lot of people ask how I am feeling, how it felt to "give the baby up", the social worker at the hospital seemed really concerned too with how I was feeling (of course that is her job).  I will say that right after she was born and she was put up on my stomach she felt like a stranger, not in a bad way, it was nice to see who was kicking me all this time, but I didn't have a real emotional connection to her. I didn't have the urge to want to touch her or put my arms around her, like I did when my own girls were born.  It just felt good to see her with her parents finally.  I did finally hold her after all the grandparents had come in and held her.  I don't feel at all like I "gave up" a baby.  She was never mine.  Being in the hospital, it felt like I was there visiting with a friend's newborn even though I was also a patient.



My girls with Hadleigh





Right before we were released