At my 40 week appointment, my doc indicated that basically I'd had no progress since they started doing cervical exams at 36 weeks. I was still only 1 cm dilated and baby hadn't dropped. He gave me a likely hypothetical which was that I would be in labor for 12-24 hours because I'd likely need Cervadil to thin the cervix and Pitocin. Needless to say I was a little scared and upset when I left that appointment, but at the same time, I was happy to know that she would for sure be here on that day & I actually expected her delivery to occur the way he indicated so I stopped thinking that every contraction was the start of labor. It eased my mind a little bit.
My husband and I have never celebrated Valentines day, so Friday night we had his brother and our friend visiting from out of town over for tacos. I felt pretty tired and sore (id been having painful Braxton hicks for weeks at night) so I went to sleep around 8:30. Chris stayed up til 12 with our out of town guest.
I woke up at 1:45 feeling a contraction & headed to the bathroom for one of my 20 per night trips to the bathroom. When I sat down, I noticed more fluid was dripping out than I was used to.
I actually woke Chris up at that point to let him know that I was in a lot of pain. Of course, he had just went to sleep so he wasn't giving me much sympathy. I told him I thought I would take a hot shower, but instead sat in bed for awhile longer and sure enough, the contractions kept coming. I used a contraction timer and tried to cuddle and get sympathy from my sleepy husband.
After just a couple contractions, I decided to jump in the shower. I had planned on putting on some makeup before my delivery, but I just didn't want to. It took changing my underwear 3 times before I wised up and put on a pad. I forced my husband out of bed and told him this wasn't a drill as I continued to use my handy app to time contractions. We gathered up our things and by the time we left at 2:45, the contractions were already 1 min long and 5 mins apart.
We dropped off Marley and hit the 24 hour Starbucks on the way (we ended up leaving Starbucks because they failed to come to the window after we ordered so we stopped at a gas station).
We got to the hospital around 3:40 and thankfully I was admitted right away after they noted I was already dilated to a 4.5/5. Even more thankfully, they got the anesthesiologist there right away! However, the first epidural didn't work and he had to come back to do it again.
Contractions are the worst so I was super happy when I got that relief! I rested a little and Chris took a good nap. I was texting and facebooking at that point, even after the nurse said I was dilated to a 9!
At around 8:30 I was at a 10 and the nurse said it was time to start pushing! I pushed 2x before they called the dr in. I pushed one more time and my beautiful girl was born! The first thing I said was "that was easy!"
I had a "marginal cord insertion" so the placenta didn't come out in one piece, dr had to feel around for it (thank goodness the epidural was still working). 1 stitch later and I was happily recovering!
Joe scored a 8.8/10 on her APGAR and only was marked off because she was a little purple when born.
Everyone commented how much better I looked after this delivery than my first (duh, I wasn't pushing for 3 hours in a 14 hour delivery). Baby was great--she nursed right away for a few hours and again all night. Non issues for either one of us & I was ready to get home!
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