Saturday, June 12, 2010

6 a.m. - First contraction

7 a.m. - Second contraction

7:30 a.m. - Lost my mucus plug

8 a.m. - 12 p.m. - More contractions and more bloody show

12:02 p.m. - Contractions are anywhere from 3-6 minutes apart and lasting 1-3 minutes

**I was in serious back labor! Ouch! Dan was gone from 10:30-12:30, so I did a lot of these contractions on my own! Once he got home, his backrubs during the contractions helped!

12:45 p.m. - Called the parents. We were not going to make it to the induction date. Baby D is coming today! Get in the car and head to Madison!

1:00 p.m. - We went upstairs so I could get dressed and get my bag. Just the walk upstairs sent my contractions into high gear! Every 3 minutes, lasting about a minute and a half each time. It took us about 12 minutes just to get me dressed and to the car.

1:15 p.m. - Head to the hospital! We had to pull over once because I had a contraction so bad I was going to throw up. I managed to hold off! No barf in the Prius!

**I'm not sure how long the walk from the car to the check-in desk at Birthing Triage took. But we were stopping every 2 minutes to have a contraction! I'm not gonna lie, they hurt like hell!

Approx. 2 p.m. - We were in triage and I was hooked up to a monitor. The nurse checked me and said that I was 3.5 cm dilated and 80% effaced. All of that since 6 a.m. and most of it since noon! I was admitted right away. And a good thing too because the contractions were getting so bad that I couldn't hardly focus enough to breath through them!

**I start to lose time here, but I know that I got into my room and was crying because the contractions and back labor were so bad. The nurse asked if I would like an epidural and the obvious answer was YES!!!!!

3:45 p.m. - The epidural was finally in. It took a while because the anesthesiologist wanted to try to get it in between contractions, but mine were so close together and lasting so long that it was tricky to time. This was the one event of the day that Dan had to step away and not watch.

4:00 p.m. - BLISS! The epidural was working! I could still feel contractions but they didn't hurt anymore!

4:14 p.m. - Dan and I were talking and we heard a small pop come from my belly, followed instantly by a pop over the monitor. My water broke. That, my friends, is a very strange sensation! I now know how a full glass of water feels when it spills off the side of a table! Or, maybe, how the Hoover Dam would feel if it burst!

4:20 p.m. - Well, crap! Now that my water broke, my contractions have increased in strength and the epidural isn't working anymore! My good friend, the anesthesiologist, returned with a special concoction that made the pain disappear! I couldn't feel anything below my waist!

4:30 p.m. - 6 p.m. - We started pushing with every

contraction! I was fully dilated, but not quite effaced yet. After several pushes, I was effaced and we started working on pushing the baby into the birth canal! The nurses asked if I wanted a break and I said yes and dozed for about a half hour.

6 p.m. - Because of the super drug from the lovely anesthesiologist, my contractions slowed way down and decreased in intensity. So, they hooked up some Petocin to get things moving again. Sometime in here, our parents arrived so hugs were given and lots of pictures were taken!

7 p.m. - Sometime in here we started pushing again. I was doing a lot of visualization because I couldn't feel the contractions or tell if I was pushing correctly. My nurses, Laurie and Kelly were amazing cheerleaders and coaches, telling me if I was pushing correctly and making progress! Dan held my hand and just kept telling me how proud he was of me!

**Again, I lose some time here. I just kept pushing Baby D into the birth canal and I remember the nurse requesting the tray of water, cloths, and other supplies needed for birthing and I knew we were close. Out came the stirrups and they took the bottom of the bed off. Dr, Arndt and Dr. Swallen came in with their scrubs on and I kept pushing. They told me to do a few small pushes, so I did. All at once the doctors, nurses, and Dan gasped and they told me to stop. His head was out but the umbillical chord was wrapped around his nck twice. I asked if he was okay. The doctor said was fine, the chord was just loosely looped around, but the wanted to get it unhooked before i pushed again!

8:40 p.m. - David Jonathan was born! 8 lbs. 6 oz. and 20 inches long. He cried and I cried and he fit just perfectly on my chest! Only a mother can truly understand the love and happiness flowing through my body! Dan just couldn't stop grinning! My love for my baby and my husband was just incredible!

I am a mother! Dan is a father! We have the most amazing son in the world!