So, at 40 weeks and 4 days at 6:00pm, we headed to the hospital. We got all checked in and filled out a mountain of paperwork. At 9pm, I was all dressed in my beautiful hospital gowns and the nurses started the first medication for the induction. I'll spare you the details, but by midnight, I was having noticeable contractions.
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| Checking in |
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| Paperwork and lovely hospital attire - I can believe I'm sharing this picture! |
So, at this point in the night, the staff is basically leaving us alone, my mom has left for the night, and it's just Jon and I in the labor and delivery room feebly trying to get some sleep. As we dozed in and out, we had various conversations about what the next few hours held in store for us. Now, though some choose not to believe us, at this point in the story we DID NOT know what the baby's name was going to be. We had some strong contenders, but I'd convinced myself that I needed to see the baby before deciding on the name. As Jon learned quickly in the pregnancy, once I'd made my mind up, there was no point in trying to change it. Anyway, sometime before midnight (I think) Jon looked up at me and asked, "what do you think of the name Hunter Jonathan?" I instantly loved it. We were both a bit taken aback as this was the first time in the whole of my pregnancy that one of us had mentioned a name and the other had agreed wholeheartedly. We just kind of looked at each other and smiled, knowing that we couldn't make any decisions until we'd seen the baby!
By 2am or so, I started to need Jon's help with the contractions. They were still perfectly manageable, but they were intense enough that I liked being able to talk with him through them and we started to time them. Now, we're in the hospital, so there's really no reason to be timing contractions, but it made the time pass for us. Plus, we'd studied so much on how to time contractions and what the different contraction patterns mean, we had to put our knowledge to use!
At 6am, medication number 1 was removed and medication number 2 (Pitocin) took it's place. Number one was just the primer to get me ready for the real stuff, but remember, I'd already been contracting for 6 hours just on the "primer." So, because I was so primed from drug number one, once they started the Pitocin, my contractions ramped up immediately. As they started the IV, I remember something our Bradley teacher had told us. For everything that we learned about how to have a natural birth, the one time she endorsed pain medication was if Pitocin was needed. "Don't be a hero," she said. "That stuff is brutal." Now, I certainly had no intention of being a hero, but as I said in my last post, we'd worked so hard for a natural birth, I just wanted Jon and I to give it our best effort. Some of you might scoff, thinking that Jon had nothing to do with it. But, actually, in the style of birthing we'd studied, he was absolutely crucial to the whole process. He was my pain medication using a wide variety of techniques to keep me calm, relaxed, and focused throughout the contractions.
Well, every 30 minutes (if I remember correctly), they upped the dosage of the Pitocin. So, my labor was progressing and getting more intense on it's own and each time the Pitocin was increased, that progression multiplied. All things considered, I think I was doing a pretty good job with the labor at this point. Jon and I were using the different labor positions we'd learned, he was using massage techniques on me, and we were breathing appropriately through each contraction. The downside to what we were doing was that those monitors that they strap to your body to tell the nurses how intense your contractions are, weren't staying in place. So, as much as they tried to get a read on my contractions, they couldn't.
So, up the Pitocin went, every 30 minutes, until I was having 4-5 contractions back to back with no break in between. One of the wonderful ways that God designed labor was built in breaks between each contraction. This is good for baby and for momma. Without those built in breaks, there was only so much I could handle. By 2pm, I'd had enough and start calling for the epidural. Jon did his due diligence to make sure I was serious, and I'm sure he could tell it better, but I guess I made it clear that I was. :) Of course, at the moment I asked for the drugs and lost all ability to focus and manage my pain on my own, the anesthesiologist was in surgery. 45 minutes later, by about 3pm, I had the epidural. I have to tell you, though, I'm not one of those women who was so happy once she had the epidural. Yes, the relief was quite lovely, but the process of getting the epidural was terrible and I just didn't enjoy the feeling of being numb from the waist down. Now that the staff was able to properly monitor me, they realized that my contractions were off the charts, if you will. They immediately turned down the Pitocin, because evidently it was way too high.
Fast forward to about 5:30pm. My doctor came in to see how far along I had progressed. Based on how long I've been contracting and how intense they were, I was expected at least 8cm. Turns out I was only 5cm. This means I was progressing at 1cm every 3 hours. Standard labor is 1cm every hour. In addition, the baby's head had created a suction as he was moving out. The suction had stopped my dilation and instead of every contraction pushing the baby further down, it was just pulling on the crown of his head. Essentially, my contractions were so intense, they were pushing the baby down faster than my dilation was able to keep up. At this point the doctor gave us the option to go a few more hours, but, I was just done. Plus, it didn't seem like more time was going to change anything in our situation. We opted, instead, to just move into a c-section.
Ok, I need to take one more break in the story. Here's a few more pictures from this part:
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| My mom, ready to drive us to the hospital. |
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| Jon trying to get some sleep before labor begins. |
