We went for our 37/38 wk appt on Monday (5/7) and had our first official "check" to see how progressed I was. Absolutely nothing was happening. So we were settling in for a long wait and expecting a Memorial Day baby. Also, my doctor was leaving town for a little while, so I wanted to hold off labor/delivery until she came back.
That entire week, I felt very tired but continued to work and see patients. Friday, I overworked a little bit, saw a lot of patients and was exhausted by the end of the day. Saturday, we drove an hour to watch my mom graduate and then Sunday we celebrated Mother's Day. Sunday night, I was completely exhausted, but counted it up as a long weekend.
I woke up off and on throughout the night just feeling "odd", but I felt like it was all pregnancy related. I really wasn't in active labor, this was all the "early stages" in my mind.
I finally woke up again at 5:30am, and felt some pretty regular contractions. I also thought my "water" may have broken. I got in the shower and worked through some contractions and they just kept coming. So I decided to start timing them before freaking out. Nate downloaded the Contraction app on my phone and started timing at 5-7 mins apart. I was set for an appointment with my doctor's partner later that day, so we decided to get ready and we would call when they opened to see if we could come in early to be checked.
We let our families know that we might be laboring, but nothing too intense, no need to worry or start heading to the hospital.
We called the office at 8:30a, talked to the nurses, and they told us to go on over to L&D to get "checked" since I was having contractions that close together. They were also concerned since my water may have broken.
We loaded up our car (with help from our sweet neighbor), told the family we were headed in, but to wait until we knew this was the "real deal" before coming.
By this time, contractions were every 3-5 mins and getting pretty intense. But I was breathing through them and rocking back and forth to help with labor. We did the classic drive to the hospital: flashers on, 85mph.....for the entire 1.5hr drive. It was an experience! By this time, I told my mom to go ahead and start driving towards the hospital (she was 2 hours away).
We got to the hospital and checked in. I shared my story with the nurse, got a "tub room" to labor in and we started the admission/lab work process. It took a little while to get a positive reading, but we finally determined that my water had broken and my nurse checked me for the first time. I didn't expect to be very progressed considering my last check, but I came out with a good 4-5cm at that point. She started my IV (the scariest part of labor for me), drew labs, put me on the monitor and then checked me again, just to see how well my contractions were progressing me. I was at a 6 by then.
I started laboring pretty intensely with contractions every 2-4mins at that point. Every hour the nurse checked me I dilated an additional cm. By 2:30pm, I had reached an 8. My husband, my best friend Chastity and my mom were helping me work through my contractions with counter pressure, fans, ice, lip gloss application and just encouraging me by helping me breathe and count through each contractions.
The pain was pretty excruciating by the time I was at an 8 and I was completely exhausted. So I asked the nurse for half a dose of Stadol. This helped tremendously and within the next hour I was at a 9 and was able to sleep between contractions. I then decided to take the second half dose of the Stadol.
The next 3 hours were the longest & hardest. I stayed at a 9 the entire 3 hours. Finally, around 5:45 they called the in the doctor. Our doctor was still on vacation, but her partner came in to deliver and I couldn't have asked for a better replacement.
At this point, I couldn't have any more IV meds. I told myself "theres only one way out of this" & so I went to work. I pushed every 2-3 minutes for roughly an hour. I quickly learned the difference between pushing the right way & the wrong way. Who knew there was a difference?
At 6:44pm I made my last big push & our son, Oden James Smith, entered the world & went straight into my arms. It was an incredible experience. Oden stayed in my arms for an entire hour following delivery. I was able to feed him and we loved on him while they finished delivering and cleaning us up.
Giving birth was the most incredible experience of my life. I couldn't be more happy with our birth experience and would do it all again in a heartbeat!!
