Continued from the 39 Weeks Post...
Seth and I arrived at the hospital around 6:30 on Friday. Nell told me that she would call the hospital and tell them I was coming so just to skip triage and go up to the 4th floor. We checked in at the desk and the receptionist told us we would need to sit in the waiting area for about 20 minutes because the nurses were changing shifts and they didn't have a room ready for us yet. We ended up spending about an hour in the waiting room with a couple of other families waiting on babies to be born before they called us back.
When we got to our room around 7:45pm, Jill introduced herself as our nurse for the night. She got me set up in my gown and bed and hooked me up to all of the monitors. I was already having regular contractions at this point, but I continued to only feel a little cramping.
She said that they had requested that I be started on a low dose of pitocin and we asked her a bunch of questions. I still wasn't sure if I wanted to be induced, so I asked her if I would get to talk to Dr. Pollard first. I guess I hadn't read enough about being induced, because I just didn't anticipate that happening. I didn't realize that I would be confined to the hospital bed for the duration of labor. She explained and then Dr. Pollard reiterated that I was already having regular contractions and the low dose of pitocin would just help to move things along.
Around 9:00 they started the pitocin at 4. My parents came in to visit with us for awhile and brought Seth Jimmy John's since we hadn't eaten dinner. Dad kept reading the monitors and tried to quiz me to see if I knew when I was having contractions. I was still only feeling cramps, but if I concentrated on them I could tell when the contractions were happening. At 10:00 they increased the pitocin to 8 and then at 10:45 Jill came in to check me again. At that point I had progressed to 4cm dilated and 80% effaced. Courtney came in to visit also.
Time seemed to move pretty quickly and I was very calm. Not at all what I had expected. Seth wasn't feeling well, because of his ear so he tried to get some sleep from 12-1:00ish. I tried to rest as well, but the blood pressure cuff kept slipping down on my elbow because it was too big. It wouldn't register and then would beep for the nurse to come check. The nurse also increased the pitocin to 12 around this time.
At 1:00 Dr. Pollard came back in to ask if I wanted an epidural and Mom came back in to check on me. Seth was extremely anxious seeming to me. I think most of it had to do with his vertigo plus him worrying about me being in pain. I was still not feeling anything worse than bad period cramps at this point so I was fine. Every time a nurse or doctor would come in, Seth would ask them about the epidural. He wanted to know how late I could wait to get it and how early I could get it. When they would leave, he would urge me to go ahead and say I wanted an epidural. Once when he went to the bathroom, I told Courtney, "he's driving me crazy! Should I just go ahead and get it so that he will stop bugging me about it, even though I'm not really in pain?" At this point when Jill would ask me my pain level, I was still only saying 5 or 6 and I felt really silly asking for pain meds when I didn't need them, but Seth's anxiety was bothering me. I wanted him to stay calm of course, because I knew I was going to need him later on!
So, around 3:00 in the morning the anesthesiologist came in to give me the epidural. This was the scariest part for me and I was a nervous wreck. I remember telling her and the nurse that I thought "catheter" was the most disgusting word in the English language. After that Jill pointed out to the anesthesiologist that she said it about 5 more times after that! Nevertheless it went in pretty painlessly and I could feel the medicine going through my body. It was also way better than I expected in that I could still feel and move my legs and feet.
At 3:20, Jill checked me and she thought I was 4cm with her head down, but then Dr. Pollard came in right after that at 3:30 and said I was actually 5cm, 80% effaced and at a negative 1 station. He decided to go ahead and break my water at that point.
Within the first hour after I got the epidural, I started feeling pain in my lower back on my right side. This part is a little fuzzy, but I think what happened was I didn't fully understand the anesthesiologist's instructions to press the button to release the medicine. So, the nurse told us to press the button and wait to see if it would kick in. Seth came and sat beside me and I squeezed his hand through some heavy contractions. This was as bad as my pain got throughout the entire thing. I remember telling him my pain was an 8 or 9, but it felt like lower back pain more than a contraction. We called the nurse after about 30 minutes, because we were unsure if the epidural was actually working. They said they thought it was because I was propped up a little and the medicine was draining down to my left, so they had me switch sides and the anesthesiologist came back in and readjusted the medicine to make sure it hadn't come unhooked. That was around 5 o'clock and it kicked back in pretty quickly.
The nurse checked me one last time and said I was ready to start pushing. Jill asked Courtney and Seth to get on either side of me to hold my legs. She told me how I would push 3 times during each contraction and just like that it started. I could feel the contractions were happening, but they were not painful. I pushed for about an hour, 3 times with each contraction. My right hip (the one that has always bothered me from running) was starting to cramp up and really bother me. After each push, I would try to stretch my leg out and asked Seth to massage my hip. Most of my discomfort at this point was because of this. After an hour, Jill kept saying I was almost there. She also reminded me that her shift ended at 6:45 and said, "I've been with you all night so I want to see this baby born before I leave!" I pushed for about 30 more minutes and it although she kept saying I was making progress, I was exhausted and it didn't seem that way to me. (Seth also told me later that he was getting frustrated because I was "almost there" for 40 minutes. That's when after an hour and 40 minutes, he took his eyes off of the contraction monitor and saw Jane's head was crowning and almost passed out.)
At this point my right hip and lower back were hurting so badly and I was frustrated. I felt like 90% of my pain was coming from laying in the hospital bed in such an uncomfortable position. I asked Jill if I could get in any other position, because I thought that would help me push better and ease my hip/back pain. She was hesitant and kept saying I was almost there to just keep pushing. I told Court and Seth that I couldn't do it anymore. I was at my lowest point and I really didn't know if I was going to be able to push her out. That was when (around 6:45) it felt like a miracle happened. I turned my head to the right and saw Jennifer del Valle (my best friend's sister-in-law), who had just started her shift and was coming in to be my nurse.
I pushed once with Jennifer while I was still on my back and then I asked her if there was any way I could change positions. She said, it usually isn't as efficient, but you can trying lying on your left side. They helped me flip sideways and I pushed through one more contraction and she said, "ok, well you're really good at this." Then she told me she needed me to hold on so that she could call Dr. Pollard in. It was finally happening! When he came in, I pushed through a contraction and out she came.
Jennifer wiped her off a little bit and immediately let me hold her. She reached her hand up to touch my face and I couldn't hold back the tears.
Then, the nurse took her over to have her APGAR test. She scored a 9 by one nurse and a 9.5 by the other. Pretty close to perfect :)
I love this picture that Courtney took of Seth and his look of pure joy.
At that point, both of our families couldn't take it anymore and they all came rushing into the room. GB, Dama, Nathan, Mom and Dad.
