(Don't you love the shark fin hair-do?)
Brad and I went to the movies on Saturday night while the Paines watched the kids. I had experienced zero signs of labor up until that evening when I lost a little bit of mucous plug. I didn't get overly excited (unless you count posting "MUCOUS PLUG" on facebook followed by a few exclamation points). I figured I still had a few days.
We got home a little after 10 pm and chatted with Melynda and Gabe for about an hour. I didn't make it to bed until about midnight.
2 am - GUSH. Ew. Waking thought, "I just peed the bed". My brain tried to tell my body to shut off the flow and stop peeing...but it didn't work. Within seconds I was sitting in a giant puddle and didn't know what to do. I yelled for Brad, who was sleeping in the other room because I have needed an entire bed to myself these last couple weeks of pregnancy. I told him that I thought my water just broke, but as I was saying it, I couldn't even believe it. My water had to be broken by the OB with Sam and Jocelyn, after epidural, pitocin and about 6 or 7 cm of dilation. I never expected this to happen anywhere other than the delivery room...especially because I hadn't had one single contraction!
I wasn't sure what the protocol was for hanging out at home after my water broke, so after transporting myself with a towel diaper to hang out in the bath tub, I called Labor and delivery. They told me that there was basically a 24 hour window to get baby out after water breaking to avoid infection in mom and baby, NICU stay, yada yada. Basically they said to come in right away. I probably should have gone for a walk instead.
Melynda came over to stay with the kids, and Brad and I left for the hospital around 3 am.
They checked me upon my arrival and I wasn't even dilated to ONE centimeter, which I expected because of the zero contractions I had experienced by this point. I was so bummed that this was happening. I didn't even think your water could break like that, out of nowhere with no signs of labor. I always thought it was a load of crap when some character in a movie was just walking around shopping and BAM water on the floor. Well, I am glad it didn't happen in a store, because it wasn't a little puddle. I gushed waterfalls for hours and hours.
Anyway, after they checked my cervix of steel, they suggested inserting a balloon thingy, and inflating it to "help" my cervix dilate. I was turned off by that idea and told them I was going to go for a walk instead. Brad, went back to the car to sleep, and I walked around the hospital entrance from about 4 am to 6:15 am. While walking, and talking to my sister Amanda on the phone, there was another woman in labor walking with her husband. She looked miserable, and I envied her so much! I wanted to be miserable too! I still wasn't feeling anything. I walked outside, down to the parking garage and back up the hill a couple times until it started raining. Nothing.
Then, the doctor called me and said that he had to prepare for shift change at 7 am and he wanted to evaluate me again before he left. So I headed back up to L&D around 6:30. They put me back on the monitor and I was registering really tiny contractions (yay), but not feeling them at all. The new shift doc brought up the balloon thing again, and I mentioned that I would rather keep walking. She reminded me that we were on the clock thanks to my water breaking and that they really wanted to avoid an infection. I felt like walking would be less risk of an infection than sticking a foreign object up inside of me, but whatever. I was indecisive, and kind of argued with her for a a few minutes. Then she decided to check me...and I was at 4 centimeters! The fact that I had progressed 4 centimeters by walking for two hours made the whole argument irrelevant, and the balloon thingy wasn't even an option anymore. Whew! I really didn't want to do that.
At this point they wanted to put me in a room and told me that I'd have to sign a waiver if I wanted to keep walking around. I decided to decline the waiver, take the room and see if my contractions picked up. I forgot to bring my exercise ball, but when Cori reminded me about it via text, I asked and they provided me with a ball bounce on.
Brad and I watched the new transformers movie while waiting for something to happen.
At 10:30 am, they checked me again and I was barely at 5 centimeters. This disappointed the staff, who was in a big hurry to get the baby out. I should have been dilating more than one centimeter in 3 hours according to them. I started to get a little scared by their protocol of c-section if there is still no baby 24 hours after water breaks. They kept asking me if I wanted pitocin, and I kept saying no.
After being stuck at 5 centimeters for a while longer, I accepted the pitocin. And just under two hours after that, I was asking for an epidural.
The epidural was fine for a while. The docs realized that I wasn't dilating because baby's head was not engaged and pushing on my cervix. She was head down, but kind of sideways. So, they had me turn on one side, trying to get her to turn a bit. When I turned on my right side, the epidural drained all into the right side of my body (thanks, gravity). I started to feel contractions on my left side, then eventually feel them everywhere.
The anesthesiologist came in to give me a bump of something through my epidural. I had the weirdest reaction! It was like the drug all went into my face. I felt as though my tongue and lips were tingling and swollen and that I was talking funny. My head started feeling a whole lot of pressure, and when I tried to point to where my head was hurting, I couldn't lift my arms! They felt like they weighed 200 pounds each. It was terrifying, but it only lasted a few minutes. However, because of this reaction...they shut the epidural off for a while. Owie. By this point the pitocin rate had been upped a couple times, so the contractions felt REALLY lovely. Eventually they pulled out the epidural and placed a new one. When it started working, I sat perfectly still. No more of that rolling over on one side nonsense for me. :)
I think at that point it was around 4 or 5 pm. I was totally expecting to have had a baby by this point. I prayed a little prayer of thanks for the new epidural and how great it felt to not feel much after the couple hours of horrible contractions. Then, I took a nap.
I woke up a little after 6 pm, in pain again. I felt like the epidural was only working on my left side this time. I was so scared that they were going to have to shut it off again, and that I still hadn't dilated, and that I was going to end up having to get a c-section. I started crying. I thought I was feeling a contraction, but when the contraction was over on paper, I still felt it. I watched the monitor show 4 or 5 contraction over 10 minutes, but I didn't feel the breaks in them. I felt like I was having a 10 minute long contraction. The doc came in and decided to check me. Turns out, it just hurt that much because I was a complete 10 centimeters (Praise the Lord) and baby was ready to come out. I started to get really excited about discovering the sex of the baby, not needing a c-section, and basically just not being pregnant any more!
Brad pulled out the camera as the rest of the delivery folks were coming in to prepare the room for baby's arrival. He filmed this at 6:29:
Then, Carolyn was born at 6:32 pm. Here is what that looked like (not exactly attractive):
The time frame from being checked to baby coming out was the same with Sam. Both times, I was discovered to be at 10 centimeters almost exactly 3 minutes before holding baby.
This time was a a little more exciting because I got to find out it was a girl!
She weighed 8 pounds and almost 1 ounce. She was 20 inches long:
Brad went to pick up the kids and bring them back to meet Carolyn when she was about 90 minutes old.
Jocelyn is in love with her and wants to be up in her face all the time, singing to her and telling her stories. Unfortunately Jocelyn is sick right now, and I have to keep dragging her away. :(
Sam wants nothing to do with her. He won't even acknowledge her presence in the house, won't say hi to her, won't give her a hug, nothing. But he climbs into the bouncy seat and pretends he is the baby, as well as crying for me to hold him constantly. I am hoping he starts to adjust very soon!
Carolyn has been a very hungry little baby. She latched right away and hasn't stopped eating since. The first night, and last night she slept from 2am to 7am, but nursed for two straight hours before and after that period.
She looks adorable in her teeny tiny, girlie, cloth diapers. I will be posting more pictures on my facebook page soon, for sure. :)
We were only in the hospital for about 24 hours after she was born, and we are so excited to finally have her home with us. :)
We have plans to try for baby number 4 next summer after our move to San Diego is complete. We will see how that goes when the time comes, as I know I don't have ultimate control over that kind of thing. But, for now we are going to make the most of our team of five and the time we have left here in Hawaii.
We are so blessed to be where we are at in our lives right now. We are looking forward to new adventures...like doing a half Ironman as a family in June! I can't wait to start training! :)
Popsicles for the kids
Daddy and Carolyn
This looks JUST like one of Jocelyn's newborn photos!
