Saturday morning I woke up after a horrible nights sleep, still pregnant and not in labor. I was frustrated to say the least, and tired and grumpy to boot. I was awake at least every hour between contractions and needing to pee and needing to switch sides. Nick was not easy to wake when Bella decided it was time to get up so I grumpily got up and decided we would go to the grocery store. Gratefully my mom agreed to go with us. The three of us arrived at Trader Joes and I was collecting the big cart while my mom and Bella went inside to retrieve the little cart for Bella (she loves pushing her own shopping cart around the store). I was distracted for a minute outside first by a low flying helicopter, and then by the pumpkins I was considering buying. As I stood there looking at pumpkins, I felt a gush of fluid. I stood there for a minute trying to determine if my water had just broken or if I had just peed myself a little. Yes, I was one of those women. I couldn't tell! I walked inside where my mom and Bella stood and I explained that I was looking at pumpkins but needed to go to the bathroom. I beelined to the restroom where I thought for sure my question would be quickly resolved. It wasn't. I had a pad with me, so I put it in and decided that I wasn't going to say anything and just finish grocery shopping. I thought it would be clear by the time I finished grocery shopping at the very least, and didn't want to rush home just to determine I was wrong. I would have been very irritated to go back to the grocery store at that point! =) So I went ahead and finished grocery shopping!
After arriving at home I had determined it was in fact my water that had broken, but clearly little boys head was acting as a plug and so there wasn't a lot of fluid coming out. Yet. I called my OBs office to give them a head's up that my water had broken. They called back and said I should go ahead and head down to the hospital. We all thought for sure I would go quickly once things started moving. At that point nothing else had changed for me- no more contractions, nothing painful, just some fluid.
So we gathered some things up (I had changed pants three times by this point because the gushes you expect had actually occurred), and headed out. We took Isabella to my dad's house, packed for the night, but with the expectation that we would have the baby by the end of the day and she would go home with my mom. We stopped to pick up some food for Nick (and me since I realized I needed a little something extra). We really didn't rush.
We arrived at the hospital around 1:30 or 2pm and checked in. We settled into our room where they put me on the monitor to check me and baby out, and we hunkered down until the doctor came to check me out. I was having contractions, but still nothing painful. Nothing that would have sent me to the hospital if I had been following typical orders (intense contractions 5 minutes apart that last 1 minute for 1 hour). By the time the doctor arrived I knew they would be talking pitocin. I wanted to hold out, sure things would start to move, but when she checked me and I had made no progress at all, I gave in.
Sometime in the evening we went ahead and started Pitocin. I genuinely believed things would get going soon. I walked, and showered, and sat on the birthing ball. I was so uncomfortable sitting in the hospital bed I felt like I wasn't going to get any sleep at all. I finally asked for some help, and was given a drug around midnight that made me happy and relaxed and allowed me to rest- finally. I had a second dose of this a few hours later and managed to get a few hours of sleep through the night. They continued upping my Pitocin little by little through the night.
By the morning I was very uncomfortable and having regular, painful contractions. I thought we were surely on our way by this point- and close to hitting the standard max of Pitocin I knew we needed to be. I was finally uncomfortable enough that I decided I would get the epidural which meant moving to the delivery room. I told them I wanted to eat breakfast, digest a little, and then it would be epidural time. We actually moved quickly after I ate breakfast. I actually had to stop in the hallway on my walk to the delivery room because a contraction hit me so hard. I thought for sure they would check me and we would be cruising right along.
Once in the delivery room, epidural placed and much happier, the doctor came in to check me and much to our surprise, dismay, and disappointment, I had barely progressed. I was still at 3 cms. I couldn't believe after all the pitocin, the discomfort, everything, this baby was holding strong and just not coming. They placed an internal monitor for my contractions to get a better idea of what was going on. No one was worried about the baby- he looked great on the monitor and no one was talking about any further intervention at that point. My doctor essentially felt that I just hadn't really been in labor yet (clearly) and that was okay. I was just starting to hit active labor (which admittedly made me feel like a little bit of a wuss since I already had the epidural). I was crushed. My dad brought Bella down to visit and my sister KC was with them as well. She had driven down from Sacramento that day. I told her I was sorry but I didn't think she was going to get to meet her nephew that day.
After a chaotic visit (I had my dad, his partner Vicki, both my sisters, Nick, Bella, my niece, my mom and Nick's mom all in my room) I asked that everyone go to lunch for a little bit so I could rest. While they were gone my epidural went lopsided and I was in quite a bit of pain. My nurse also decided that she wanted the doctor to replace my internal monitor because she felt that it wasn't reading the intensity of my contractions accurately. At 1:30pm she checked me and I still hadn't progressed. I switched sides to try and redistribute the epidural while we waited for the doctor. At 2pm the doctor arrived to check the monitor. She checked me before doing this and found that I had gone from 3cms to 5 cms in that half an hour! Success! She also felt the monitor was fine which meant I could receive some more Pitocin (we had now crossed the standard cap). Meanwhile, the contractions became very painful on one side with the lopsided epidural.
Everyone came back to say goodbye and we called the anesthesiologist to give me a little more medicine to fix the epidural. I started feeling confident that we might just have our baby before the end of the day. I set a new goal of delivering before dinner (because by this point I was hungry!) and that would also mean that Bella could meet her baby brother.
I started feeling pressure and kept my nurse informed. I guess I was a little too calm about it or something. I told her when the pressure started and then when I could feel him moving into the birth canal more fully. I didn't feel the urgency to push, but knew that it meant he was close. She finally decided to check me and low and behold I was fully dilated and ready to go! She told me not to move and keep my legs closed because she needed to get my doctor down there! =) My doctor arrived shortly and we got to the business of pushing. After a couple of minutes of me complaining that I couldn't breathe (well I couldn't!) I started pushing. Altogether once the doctor arrived and I got down to business, it was less than 15 minutes of pushing. Giancarlo was born at 4:23pm.
So from 1:30 to 4pm I went from 3cms to fully dilated and ready to go. Talk about speedy! That was the labor I imagined I'd have- minus the 24 or so hours leading up to that! I suppose if I'd stayed home and followed the typical rules about when to go to the hospital, that is what I would have gotten. Who knows. Maybe if I have a third baby I'll give myself the opportunity to find out. I no longer feel like I missed out on an experience though. I'm pretty clear that I'm a fan of the epidural and see no reason to suffer through labor pains. It clearly didn't delay my labor at all! It would be nice to avoid the pitocin, but at least I got to experience the "it's time" water breaking moment! I also only had a first degree tear, which according to my doctor only happened because he corkscrewed himself out at the last moment.
There you go. Giancarlo's birth story. Not the story I'd imagined for myself, but as with any healthy baby- a happy ending. I'm still healing but in much better shape than the first time around. No narcotics needed, only ibuprofen. I was on my feet a few hours after birth without much trouble, and it only took that long due to the extra dose of epidural I had received so shortly before birth. Took awhile to regain full feeling of my legs!
We are all adjusting to our new life and recovering from the major event. Bella struggled quite a bit the first week, but that another story for another day. As of today things look good, and we are very happy. Our expanded little family of four.
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