I was feeling kinda apprehensive the night before. Was inducing the right decision? Anyhoo I tried to go to bed early and redid my toe nails :) Got up bright and early (6am) and confirmed the hospital had a room available. My mom made a us a light breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast. Then DH and I jumped into the car and drove to the hospital at 7am on that Tuesday morning 12/21. Nervous but we're having the BABY!
Registration was quick and we were shown to the room #8 (lucky?). Evil nurse on duty quickly hooked up to the IV by 8am and the pit was started. Getting the IV was one of the most painful parts of the day since evil nurse couldn't find my vein grrr.
Since the pit had to be administered, I couldn't move around during labor or sit on my bouncy birthing ball. I was hooked up to the IV which I'd to take with me to the bathroom, along with my friends the contraction monitor and the fetal monitor. FUN :P Guess those techniques they taught in birthing class weren't quite so realistic. Moving around was a b*** and the annoying hospital gown had a gaping hole in the back. I still had some sense of dignity early on ...
Forcing a smile ...
The contractions started out slowly with mild cramps. We occupied ourselves watching bad day time TV and mucking around on our phones. John Muir has great wifi! The Dr stopped by to "break my water" and do an internal exam at 9ish. Strangely no fluid came out ... in fact there was none during my entire birth. OMG so I was really out of amniotic fluid. Poor baby :(
At 10am, the anesthesiologist stopped by to introduce himself. He came pushing his little cart of equipment. DH and I were pretty amused ... like a dim sum trolley! How cute. Evil nurse stops by a bit later to convince me to get the epidural right away. Decided to wait till the pain got unbearable. I managed to hold out till around 2.30pm before desperately seeking the guy with the good drugs. The contractions had gotten regular and intense and I felt like something was trying to bust out of my rectal area (I know weird).
Thankfully getting the epidural was really quite painless! They had me sitting in this massage chair face down (yep like the ones at the mall haha) as the nice drug dude worked on my back. The whole process took barely 5 minutes. Then relief! But wait it was only on one side. What if I was that 1% of the population that epis don't work on??? PANIC We called for the nurse (nice due to shift change) and she suggested upping the dose to see if that helped before paging drug dude. Wait I could control the level of pain relief myself? Muahhah. Don't worry I exercised some restraint. Only pushed the button 2 out of the 3 possible levels. Finally pain free and I could still wiggle my toes and sort of move my legs! Nap time.
Things then progressed smoothly with the dilation. By 8pm I was 10cm and it was time to push. Of course I had no idea how to do that. While I could feel the contractions I wasn't sure if my pushing was working. Anyway we kept working on it for almost 2 hours. DH was an awesome coach and only left my side for 15 minutes the entire time! When the doctor came back, baby's head was station 2 but his body was slanted to the left in an awkward position! Doctor then suggested trying the vacuum and if that didn't work a C-section.
Ok so WTF. I didn't go through all that to get a c-section. What's with the impatience? DH asked if we could take a time out and see if we could get the baby to move. Dr was like, well you can try but it probably won't help (yes he was getting on my nerves now). Since baby usually moves quite a bit while I sleep at night, I lay on my right and rested for a bit. Miraculously I could feel him repositioned in the center now!
So I got to start pushing again. And by now I was really getting the hang of it. Nice nurse and DH could now see the hair on baby's head. YAY. Dr came back along with the rest of the crew, pediatrician and nurses in tow. It's show time. Dr then suggests using the vacuum again. WHAT? I mean we could already see the hair now? That made me mad and I pushed with all my might ... tadah baby makes his entrance naturally at 11.59pm and 50seconds!
A little pissed but healthy :D ... he then proceeds to pee on the pediatrician lol
All clean after a shampoo ... welcome Moggie :) we <3 you!
