I was scheduled to be induced the morning of April 18 at
7:30 a.m. (two days after Jane's due date). The night before, the hospital charge nurse
called to inform me that it might be too busy to do it in the morning, so I
should call at 6:00 a.m. to check with them. I called the next morning, and
sure enough, they were too full. I called again at 8:00; same story. We kept
calling back, as instructed, at 10:00 a.m. and noon. By that point, I was
seriously frustrated and bummed out. Would she even be born that day?! No one
knew. Then we were finally told we could come in at 1:30! Hooray! Only six
hours later than what we’d been planning on…
We got checked in and got to our room relatively quickly.
The plan was for Dr. Heffner to break my water
first, since we were pretty sure that would be more than enough to start labor. Surprisingly, she (Dr. Heffner) came in to break my water around 2:25, so that
was nice to get things going right away. Also surprisingly (but not in a good
way), I was still only dilated to a 3, and breaking my water was incredibly
painful. But then it was over, and contractions started pretty soon after.
No one had told us this before we checked in, but the policy on the labor and delivery floor was to be on a clear liquid diet until after delivery. I hadn’t eaten since 9:00 a.m. because I thought I’d be able to eat at the hospital. That was unfortunate (definitely an understatement).
No one had told us this before we checked in, but the policy on the labor and delivery floor was to be on a clear liquid diet until after delivery. I hadn’t eaten since 9:00 a.m. because I thought I’d be able to eat at the hospital. That was unfortunate (definitely an understatement).
Around 2:45, Andrew and I took a walk around the floor for
20 minutes. By the time we were done, the contractions were getting more
uncomfortable, but not very painful yet.
Our labor and delivery nurse, Lisa, was awesome. She suggested a bunch of
different laboring aids, and at 4:15, I decided to try out the Jacuzzi tub in
the bathroom. It felt great and helped to ease the pain, but as soon as I got
out, that relief was gone! Contractions started getting a lot stronger and
closer together. Lisa told us that the tub usually had that effect; if it was
real labor, getting in the hot water would kind of speed things up (while if it hadn’t been real labor, it would have slowed things down).
I’d already told the nurses that I planned on getting an
epidural, and we knew that before getting the epidural, I’d need to
have fluids given through my IV, which would take a good
amount of time. By this point, I was really in a lot of pain—more pain than I
had ever experienced. With Emerson, I got an epidural before the pain got this
bad (with him, I had Pitocin, so the contractions were much closer together and harder to handle even with lower pain). So around 5:10, I told her I
wanted to get the fluids going to start the whole process. The anesthesiologist got there around 6:00, and by 6:30, the epidural had mostly taken effect. It was fantastic.
Lisa checked me around
6:45 and to my horror, I was only at a 3-4! (I bet I was still at a 3 and she
just said that to make me feel better!) So after that, I just tried to get
comfortable and get some rest, because we figured Jane wouldn’t be coming for a
long time. It was frustrating that I had gone through all that pain for no
dilation (and it definitely made me feel like a wimp), but it didn’t bother me
too much. I knew it wouldn’t do any good at that point!
Around 8:50, Lisa came to check me again. She got a
surprised look on her face and just said to me, “10!” Yay!! The epidural had
worked its magic. Lisa called the doctor to come in immediately for delivery!
She got there a few minutes later and got to work setting everything up.
At 9:00 p.m., we were all ready to push. (Well obviously, I
was ready to push and everyone else was ready to catch/clean/help.)
Right as Dr. Heffner was telling me to do the first push, Andrew said, “I’m
just going to run to the bathroom really quick before we get started!” Dr.
Heffner replied, “Uh...you might not want to do that quite yet!” I thought she
was joking, but she wasn’t. I did one real push (not even a set of three; just
one!), and then they told me to stop. Then I did three tiny pushes (she would
say, “Push…okay stop! Push a little…okay stop!”), and Jane was born at 9:02!
Easiest pushing ever. It almost makes me scared for the next kid; they might
just slide right out without me knowing.
It happened so fast! I held her there while I got stitched up (and while they kneaded my stomach to death, ugh). Then I was able to nurse her before they took her to the weighing station in the room. When they said she weighed 8 lbs, 13 oz., I thought that their scale was wrong! Haha. Emerson was only 8 lbs, 2 oz., and she felt just as small as he had. But it was right (of course)! She was just a cute little chunk.
Emerson didn't know what to think at first, but he's really warmed up to her since then. He loves making her smile, and she loves watching him do pretty much anything.
We've got two cute kids!
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