This post is very late, but Grant made his debut 12 days ago on May 29, 2014 at 6:33 pm.
I've been a little busy taking care of the little guy, so I'm just getting around to recording his birth story. I wanted to write it all down before I forget everything that happened.
So on Tuesday, May 27 I went in for my 39 week appointment and my doctor stripped my membranes. I was only 1.5 cm dilated at this point. The plan was that if I didn't go into labor myself by Monday June 2, that he would break my water after my 40 week appointment.
All Tuesday afternoon I anxiously waited to feel contractions or some sign that I would go into labor, but nothing happened. Wednesday rolled around and I started to feel a little crampy and lost my mucus plug that morning. I went to work like normal, but was feeling pretty tired and left around 3pm. At this point work was really a chore. The chair hurt my back, my feet were so incredibly swollen, and I had to take a million bathroom breaks. Anyway, so I left work a little early and came home and tried to take a nap. My lower back was bothering me too much to sleep though and I gave up after a fitful 30 minutes of in and out sleep.
David and I decided to go eat Jalapeno Tree for dinner where they sat us in a booth that my belly was too big for. I ate a delicious dinner however even though I was still feeling kind of crampy. We came home and did our nightly ritual of walking around the neighborhood to get my dilation going. After walking I bounced on my exercise ball and noticed that I seemed to be having small contractions (feeling like period cramps) all throughout Catfish (we love that show!) As soon as bedtime rolled around though I noticed that they had stopped and I was disappointed that once again I was going to go another day pregnant.
However, as soon as I got in bed at 11pm, my lower back started really aching off and on consistently and that the pain was 10 minutes apart. I tried to sleep, but I was just too uncomfortable laying down. I tried sleeping in the recliner and after a while the pain was coming 7 minutes apart lasting about 30 seconds each contraction. David was asleep during all of this since there was nothing he could do to help at this point and I figured at least one of us needed to be rested if this was actually labor!
I had already decided I wanted to labor at home as long as I could, but once my contractions were coming 2-5 minutes apart and lasting 45 seconds, I was in some PAIN. These contractions HURT. No sooner had one ended, another one started and I ended up throwing up from the pain. At 3:00 am I decided that this must actually be labor and let David know we needed to head to the hospital. The drive there was awful (you think that at 3am there wouldn't be any traffic) because we hit road construction where it was down to one lane. The whole drive I was having constant contractions and doing my best to stay relatively calm so I didn't freak David out.
We finally made it to the hospital around 3:30 am and my worst nightmare came true. I was only 2.5cm dilated. I knew you had to be 3cm to be admitted and I did not want to be sent home only to turn around and drive right back. They called my doctor and they told me to walk around for 2 hours and they would check me again. Walking while having contractions is horrible. They are so much more painful when you have gravity pushing the baby down too. I kept having to take breaks and sit in the waiting room. The whole time I was wondering how women go through this without an epidural! At 6:00am they checked me again and I was at 3cm which meant I was in active labor and progressing so they admitted me and at 7:00 am gave me and IV with some pain meds to take the edge off a little.
At 8:00 am I was 4cm dilated and they gave me the epidural! 20 minutes after the epidural was administered I was still feeling the contractions so they upped my dose, which turned out to completely paralyze me from the waist down for the next 8 hours - but at least I wasn't in pain anymore!
At 11:30 am I was 8cm and I was able to start pushing at 3:00 pm. The pushing was near impossible because I was completely numb and couldn't move my legs. David and the nurse had to actually hold my legs with each contraction. After pushing for 2 hours the epidural had worn off enough that I could hold my legs myself and I felt like I started to make more progress. However when the doctor came in and checked me, he told me that Grant was posterior and hadn't moved down at all in the 2 hours I had been pushing. He said a C-Section was more than likely at this point, but I really didn't want to do that after laboring so hard for so long! He told me I could push for 30 more minutes to see if I made any progress. Well after another hour of pushing (3.5 hrs total!) Grant was born!
I had been running a low temp the entire time I was pushing (around 100), and after he was born they checked and my temp was 103. My temperature caused Grant to be born with a fever, and this meant more testing for him to make sure everything was fine. Luckily everything came back perfect and we were able to come home 48 hours later.
It definitely wasn't an easy labor or how I imagined it would go, but we are both so happy that he is here and healthy!
