Crabby Mama

After last post the contractions got SO bad, I could not stand it. We called the dr, but didn’t wait for her to call back. Off we went back to the hospital at 9:15am. I was terrified of not having made any progress, but was in so much pain I didn’t care. Of course the same drive that took 20 minutes at 2am now took 35 minutes and I was moaning all the way. Mike was pretty scared that I was so far along, I would deliver in the car (no danger of that, come to find out later). The nurses, seeing my state when I arrived, moved things right along.

My first check revealed that I was now 4 cm (the magic epidural number) and 90% with him at -2. It took until about 11:30 to get the epidural. It helped pretty quickly, but I could still feel the contractions on the left side. So a little while later the anesthesiologist pulled out the epidural catheter and redid it. With one bolus of epidural already in place, I got the full second dose on my left side. Needless to say, I was so numb I had absolutely NO feeling in my legs. They looked and felt completely lifeless, which was SO bizarre.

Once all that business was over with, the dr arrived, checked me (5cm!) and broke my water. She said I did not have a lot of fluid because I was so close to term AND there was meconium in the fluid. This means he had pooped already and had possibly ingested it. So the neonatal nurse had to be present for the birth and do an assessment to make sure he had no ill effects from this.

About an hour later, dr said hey, let’s just check you for fun (I was her only patient at the time and she was hanging out waiting for me to deliver). In one hour, I had progressed to fully dilated and +2 station (means he was RIGHT THERE ready to come out). The same thing had happened when I delivered Erin although not quite as quickly. As soon as I relax, I dilate so fast, but until the pain is gone I cannot let go enough to dilate. Anyway, we debated for a bit on whether or not to push yet since I could not feel anything at all. We decided it was best to finish watching What Not To Wear before trying. The dr sat in my room and watched with me.

She took a quick peek after that and said, “Be careful, don’t sneeze, he may come flying out.” So everything got set up and we watched the monitor for contractions. They would ask me to push and I would try. They would say things like, “Great job” or “Just like that” and I would try to replicate that push but I truly had NO idea what I was doing.It took maybe 4 or 5 sets of 3-4 pushes to get his head out, then the dr kinda wrestled his shoulders out. I could see the meconium on his body, but he did immediately start crying. They took him straight to the warmer to see if he was healthy. He ended up with Apgar scores of 9 and 9, so there were no issues there. Born at 1:45pm, he measured 21 inches and weighed in at a whopping 9lbs 1oz. I had always thought he filled up the space in my belly WAY more than either of the girls, and now I was justified.

I apparently had the teeniest tear so I got one teeny stitch. After 4 hours my epidural had finally worn off enough for me to get up and move around. Adam has nursed well on both sides as of 9:30pm. SOOOO relieved that the minimal trauma is over and everything else went SOOOO smoothly.

Last night at midnight we woke up to Erin crying. Mike went in to check on her and I had a mild contraction. By the time he got back to bed, I had another one. They started off around 7-9 min apart but over the course of 2 hours, decreased to almost 5 min apart. When I called the dr, she said (Yep it is not my regular OB yet again!) to come in. With it being my 3rd baby, it might be faster this time. So Mike and I packed up the rest of our stuff and headed to the hospital at 2:30am. At 3:10 I was checked and was still 3cm from my dr appt last week. I had effaced to 80% but Adam was still at -3. Nurse said she would recheck in an hour and she was fairly confident I would have made enough progress to be admitted (ONE stinking centimeter!). During that hour, the contractions seemed to get closer together so while I had my doubts, I tried to remain hopeful. Results of the second check? NO CHANGE. So we asked to walk the halls for another hour. The contractions while walking were SO painful and strong, I thought for sure something was going on. Results of the third check? NO CHANGE. And that is when they discharged us.

I asked, “Okay, so how will I know when it is time to come back to the hospital? Obviously the contractions won’t be the signal, they are already under 5 min apart and strong.” And I could not really get a straight answer. I did get a dose of vicodin to help control the pain a bit so I could rest some at home. And lemme tell you, my bed never felt so good. Strangely enough, after we got home I was able to rest for about 1 1/2 hours. Not technically sleep, I guess because I was still having contractions. But they were a little less painful and spaced out a little bit.

Now it is 9am and they are back with a vengeance. And I am in a dilemma. I have no idea how to know when it is time to go to the hospital. And I DO NOT want to go in and have them say NO CHANGE again and get sent home.

I am really trying not to get frustrated. But by this time in the pregnancy, Erin was already born. We are fast approaching Leah’s birth too. Is Adam really planning to be the stubborn one of my group? For quite a few days we were all excited and anticipatory every time I had a little twinge of anything. Now I feel like I rewound my life by 2 weeks and we are starting over. I have a dr appt this morning and while I am hoping with all my heart he says that I have progressed quite a bit since last week (and maybe even so dilated that he wants me to just stay in the hospital! ha ha). BUT I kind of know that there won’t be really all that much change. My body just does not progress very well for early labor. While I love having my mom here, I feel bad that she won’t be able to stay for as long after Adam comes because she came so early.

Man, the waiting is so much harder this time around.

I made it through last night and actually got some sleep! I did wake up to a contraction every 1-2 hours, but it was only one at a time and I was able to go back to sleep fairly soon. So now I have to make it through today, then TONIGHT after trick-or-treating, we can go to the hospital and after midnight have a baby. Wouldn’t that be wild though if I called it like that way back when?

So tonight since we got back from Spooktacular I have been having contractions more intense than BH but not super painful. The last two pregnancies, I NEVER had real feeling contractions until I was 1-2 days out from having the baby. So I am going with the assumption than it will be within the next few days. With that in mind, I called my mom and she booked her flight for tomorrow morning. This whole mom thing has given me MUCH anxiety the last few weeks, so it is an ENORMOUS relief to know she will be here at 10:30am. We discussed how even if Adam doesn’t come until Tuesday or Wednesday, tomorrow would still be a great day for her to be here so that she can go trick-or-treating with us. Anyway, I wanted to record this so that I will remember how the last few days went down.

This past week has been crazy but it is almost over now. Tonight is Spooktacular at the gym. Tomorrow is pumpkin carving in the morning, then playtime, dinner, and trick-or-treating at a friend’s house. THEN I will be doing pretty much nothing Sunday and working on getting Adam out. Any stories of how you induced labor?

Speaking of labor, I actually had a few slightly painful contractions today. Usually my BH contractions are not painful just a feeling of tightening. So the ones today were different, which is good. So maybe Sunday isn’t too far off a guess.

Also speaking of labor, I am curious about how long you guys consider your labors to be (how many hours). When do you consider labor to have begun? When you first start having clockable contractions? When you go to the hospital? I always say Leah’s labor was 41 hours (8pm Sunday to 1:30pm Tuesday) and Erin’s was 36 hours (noon Saturday to 12:30am Sunday). Those times reflect when I was actually able to start timing contractions and have them be xx minutes apart. Now at the beginning both times, they started off like 20 min apart. Do I start counting labor from then, or do you not count it until they are closer? How much closer? My contractions never seem to get all that close together, even once I am admitted to the hospital.

Last night, Tiff, Laurie, and I went out for pedicures and dessert for my baby shower. First of all, we were running late and missed our pedicure appointment. So we found some random place in a shady neighborhood. They came out good for all that. Then we decided to go to this diner closer to home. Laurie and I were following Tiff and somehow lost her. We ended up pulling like 3 U-turns to find this place. But we finally made it.

They had so many desserts it was hard to choose. I chose two: bread pudding and strawberry shortcake. Mike was HAPPY to get the leftovers in his tequila-induced state.

Anyway, while we were there, I of course had to go to the bathroom. I go in there and there are three drunk women. One of them was wearing a pink tube dress under a black lace dress. She immediately pounced on me saying, “OH, you are a god-DESS” and started rubbing my belly. I kept trying to inch my way around her friend into the stall but this lady followed me rubbing the whole way. I made it into the stall and while I was in there I could hear them shrieking. When I came out I went to the sink and this lady came up behind me and rubbed my belly from behind while I was washing. As I dried she kept saying “Glamour magazine says pregnant women are such goddesses. You know you are a goddess, right?” I got out of there as fast as I could.

It was strange and disturbing to say the least. Good thing I am not sensitive to people touching my belly. It didn’t bother me all that much, it was more funny than anything. But yikes!

So I went from 0 cm dilated, 30% effaced and +3 station to 2 cm, 50% and +2 in 2 weeks. At least my body is starting to move toward delivery. I still think it will be the first week of November. That would work better for us anyway because:

Monday is my playground Halloween carnival that I am chairing.
Tuesday I have a book club meeting.
Wednesday is my next dr appt.
Thursday is trick-or-treating at Mike’s work.
Friday is Spooktacular at the gym.
Saturday is Halloween.

So it would be nice if Adam would wait until after Saturday. Sunday would be fine.

I have to admit that I have been sleeping pretty well for 9 months pregnant. Yes, I still tend to go to bed too late, but usually once I am in bed I fall asleep easily and stay asleep most of the night. Generally one potty break in the night is enough and I can fall right back to sleep. I must admit I am surprised by this, but extremely grateful. It would be SO hard to make it through the day tired right now.

I have decided that if I am going to be horrible about keeping up Adam’s journal, I have to at least keep up the blog. I can’t let Facebook be my only memories of the end of this pregnancy.

So I have never really had all that many Braxton Hicks contractions in previous pregnancies. But yesterday was a doozie. All day long I was having them, at least 5 or so every two hours. I have never experienced this before so I was super excited that maybe this signified the beginning of the end. But of course then today I have had two or three ALL day. So I don’t know what was going on, but yesterday seems to be a fluke.

I am SO hoping Stacy has her baby soon so I can pop over there and meet her before I am stuck here. We timed it a little too well apparently.

Still keepin up our crazy schedule over here. I do have a week of pampering in store for me though.
Wednesday-haircut and color
Friday-deluxe pedicure thanks to my CDS girls!!!
Monday-1 hr prenatal massage
And I am looking forward to EVERY minute of those three things. I do also have a small Halloween carnival to put on next Monday afternoon. But then I am free of obligations and ready to just sit back and wait for the baby.