how it happened.

here's my birth story...or what i can remember of it!

so, on wednesday may 27th, i was supposed to have a doctor's appointment. i went in, and apparently they had scheduled my appointment at a different office. stupid heads. i was really disappointed because i had been having a gut feeling that something had been happening in uterus-land. we rescheduled my appointment for the next day at 1 pm.

chris and i went to bed that night, and of course i had problems falling asleep. story of my life. i want to say that around 3 am i felt the first of my contractions. now, up until this point i hadn't felt anything that i considered to be braxton hicks, so at first i wasn't really sure what i was feeling, i just knew that it kind of hurt. after timing a few at about 10 minutes apart, i got out of bed and moved to the couch to see if the shift would make them go away. well, they didn't. i started timing on contraction master, and by around 5-6 am they were pretty consistently at 5 minutes apart. now, i had been told by one of my doctors that the magic number was 5 minutes apart for at least an hour. i thought, hmmmm...i think maybe i should call. i for sure didn't think that i would make it to my scheduled 1 pm appointment, so i got on the phone. the OB on call told me that she thought i was in early labor, and that if i wanted i could come on in to the office when it opened at 8 and she would go ahead and check me out. awesome. so, i woke chris up, got dressed, and off we went.

at this point (8 am), the contractions weren't unbearable, but they were definitely enough to stop me in my tracks. at this point i was positive that i would be having a baby that day. i got in to see the doctor, and i was at 1 cm. 1 cm!!!!! i was SO upset and disappointed. when i heard that i started to get really scared because if i was only at 1 cm, and the contractions were hurting as much as they were, i couln't even imagine how much worse they were going to get!

and worse, they got. we were sent home, and i didn't move from the couch. my amazing husband timed the contractions for me and rubbed my back. they eventually started being around 3 minutes apart, and by 1:30 i had had enough. i called L&D, and they told me that i needed to come in.

after i got settled into the exam room and fitted with all my monitors, the doctor came in, and i was almost 4 cm! woohoo! they moved me to a room, got admitted, and all that other good stuff. i would like to say that i got my epidural right away and everything was right as rain, but unfortunately that didn't happen! after they FINALLY got my IV in (which took 4 needle sticks, 2 nurses, and the anesthesiologist) they decided that i was too dehydrated and wanted me to get a bag of fluids in before they would give me the epi.

through all of this, they were having trouble getting mia's HB with the external monitor. the decision was made to put in the internal one, which is attached to the top of the baby's head. while they were doing this, the doctor was going to break my water, since i had never noticed it break. well, to everyone's surprise, my water had already been broken! this caused a small problem, since this meant that nobody had any idea what time my water had actually broken. this meant IV antibiotics for me.

around 5 or 6, we finally got through the first bag of fluids, so it was epidural time! this (along with the IV) was one of the things that i was most afraid of going into labor, but i'll tell you what, at this point i wasn't even worried! i just wanted to not feel the contractions anymore! i hadn't been checked since i was admitted, so i'm not sure how far along i was, but if i had to guess i would say i was around 6 or 7 cm by the time i got the epi. afterwards, i was in HEAVEN. get the epi...it's the best thing ever.

after the epi i was having some blood pressure issues, so i was put on oxygen for pretty much the rest of my labor. it sucked. we were also having problems with the external monitor picking up my contractions. the OB wanted to insert an internal monitor for that as well, but when he went in to do it, i was at 9 cm!

once i hit 10 cm, i did not start pushing right away. mia still hadn't dropped as much as they wanted, so they let me "labor down" for a few hours. this was nice because i got to just relax in my room with chris and my mom. finally, around 9:45, we started to push. that first push was so weird because it didn't feel like it did anything at all. it must have though, because at 10:52 pm, after a little over an hour of pushing, we had little mia!

i didn't get to hold her for over an hour because i tore, so i needed some stitches, plus there was an issue with my placenta and amniotic sac. i don't remember the term the OB used for it, but it made it very difficult for the two to be delivered. the OB ended up having to manually remove them, which, of course, called for MORE IV antibiotics. it didn't hurt, but it was pretty darn uncomfortable.

if i could give anyone just one piece of advice, this is it: if you have ANY hemmrhoids before you go into labor, take care of them! i had one that i let go because it just never bothered me, so i thought it was fine. oh boy. like i said, TAKE CARE OF IT BEFOREHAND.

so there it is. 20 hours of labor later, i had my beautiful, perfect baby girl.