Labor - Take 1

So I thought I'd give the story of my first labor (since I started this blog after my oldest was born) before I actually get to the most current one... So if you're not into birth stories, seriously skip this post!

When you read this I may or may not have had my second baby... I scheduled this to post today - last night (Thursday) so that it would actually get posted! So at time of scheduling I only know that I'm being induced tomorrow morning - hopefully they'll just have to break my water (unless I actually go into labor before getting to that point.) However, if you're reading this on Saturday - there should be a baby... I'm hoping not to repeat how long my first labor was! Oh, and here's that story...

I woke up with contractions 8-10 minutes apart on my due date with my first son. They stayed 8-10 minutes apart MOST. OF. THE. DAY. They occasionally dropped to about 7 minutes, but not deciding to get closer together by any means! After dinner they actually started to pick up in intensity. We finally went to the hospital at 2:30 AM when they were about 5 minutes apart. My contractions were never regular during the whole labor... 

We got to triage and they checked - I was at 4 CM. I was happy because this was the second time I'd been to the hospital - the first time was two weeks prior and turned out to be false labor. The next time they checked (a little over an hour later) I was 5 CM. I was glad that I was actually in labor and was getting somewhere...but that was short lived!

This couch was in the birth suite. It was super comfy! This is the ONLY picture we have of me in labor...

We were admitted to a birth suite and we waited... and waited... and waited... seriously I think 12 hours went by before I got past 5 CM. During this time, I watched a movie, took a hot bath in their wonderful sunken tub, and then they tried to break my water... we don't know if it was actually successful as his head was wedged so nicely in my pelvis that there was not gush or even a trickle of water - EVER. My contractions did intensify after they tried to break my water, but it was still hours before I heard anything other than 5 CM. I loved the nurse I had during most of this time... the last time I got checked that I was still at a 5 was towards the end of her shift and she told the Intern that if he said 5 again she was going to hit him! He very tentatively said 5 that time...(and no she didn't actually hit him.)

Wouldn't you know that I started to progress RIGHT before the doctor was going to discuss giving me some medicine to 'speed things up'. (We lived in a town with a medical school so it was mainly the Intern that checked me.) A few hours later at 9 PM I actually felt the urge to push, however I wasn't fully dilated (of course, why should ANYTHING about this labor be easy!) After a few contractions the nurse said I could push but not with much effort. Thankfully a few minutes later I was fully dilated!

At this time I was exhausted... I had been awake since 8am the morning before (with a few 'naps' between contractions during transition.) I hadn't had anything to eat for about 24 hours, had thrown up a few times in the past 2 hours. Let's just say I was VERY anxious to have this OVER! While I was pushing my contractions were still irregular. They'd be on top of each other to a few minutes apart. I do remember while pushing, his head slipping back in... oddest sensation ever! However during the next contraction he went farther than he'd been before (it's just that nobody in the room - doctor, intern, nurse or my husband - thought to tell me this.) After 2 hours of pushing we had a beautiful baby boy. He was pretty messy as there was meconium in the fluid and after they placed him on my stomach-he decided to pee all over me. He was 8 lbs 13 ounces and 20 inches long. He also had gorgeous black hair - about 3/4 of an inch long. My husband went with the nurse while they cleaned him up and I got stitched up. Sometime in here hubby also went to the sandwich shop in the hospital and got us something to eat (it was 11PM when my son was born so the cafeteria was closed - the sandwich shop stayed open until Midnight. I think we actually got the sandwiches closer to 11:30-11:45.) Let me tell you that was one of the best tasting sandwiches I'd ever eaten (probably because of the whole 24 hours with no food!)

I was so grateful to be able to shower after I got stitched up, and even more grateful they had a chair in the shower as I was so weak by this point... I used it pretty much the whole time. I did give my husband a scare as I dropped the shower head (yeah, they had removable one and I loved that too!) so he had to come into the bathroom to make sure I hadn't fallen! I could see why he was worried, I was pretty exhausted and drained so it was a definite possibility!

They took us to our recovery room and gave our son a bath, which my husband watched and I pretty much slept through. By this point we'd been in the hospital 24 hours... and I was pretty much ready to catch up on pulling an all-nighter... but as any of you new mom's know - that didn't happen for a LONG time. ;).