Week 39 - the day before Liam was born.
The day before Liam arrived my two friends Rosemary and Michelle stopped by for a visit. This was such a needed visit. I was getting sick and tired of hanging out at the house feeling huge, uncomfortable, and impatient. It was great to see Ava again. It's amazing how much she has grown since the last time I've seen her. They really do grow so fast! I was holding Ava telling her to push Liam out. Something must have worked because contractions started right after they left.
At 5PM I started feeling cramping/contractions. I still was a little unsure of the difference. Everyone told me, "Oh you will know!" I started to time them and rate their level of pain. Nothing was consistent so I didn't think much of it. Greg came home with pizza and we went on a walk to get the contractions moving.
I felt great. I was so disappointed. I wanted this to be the real thing, I was ready! When we were almost home from the walk the contractions picked back up. I timed the contractions for 4 hours. At this point I thought I should call the doctor. They were 3-5 minutes apart with some being 7 minutes apart, and they were definitely getting stronger. The doctor told me to try and sleep and if I couldn't to call back. That was at 12:30am. At 2:30am I called the doctor back and told them I wanted to come in. We arrived at the hospital at 3am. I wasn't admitted to the hospital because I was only 3cm dilated.
The nurse did some tests and determined I was in the early stages of labor but that I couldn't be admitted until I reached 4cm. She said I could stay 2 hours trying different exercises to get the process started. I walked around the halls, bounced on an exercise ball, and got down on my hands and knees swaying back and forward. Two hours later I was still 3cm dilated.
The nurse called the doctor on call to see what the next steps should be. It was the same doctor that was on call when we went to the hospital the Saturday before. She was probably thinking, "not these people again!" The doctor suggested I go home and take an ambien to go to sleep. (No thank you!) Luckily, we had an awesome nurse and she suggested that I get a dose of morphine and try and relax at the hospital. The nurse thought I wasn't progressing because every time I had a contraction I would tense up. She said the morphine would help me relax and hopefully my contractions would allow me to dilate more. At 6am we were moved to a labor and delivery room.
At 9am I was checked again and I was 4.5cm dilated. We were now admitted to the hospital! I was given Pitocin to help strengthen my contractions because they still weren't as strong as they would like to see them. At this point my memory gets a little cloudy.
At 11am I was given my epidural. At first, it was amazing! I loved everything about it. I was having contractions (I could see them on the screen) but could feel nothing. A little while later I started feeling contractions. The nurse pumped more epidural into me. Throughout the afternoon I had the epidural pumped into me 4 different times. It was making me sick to my stomach and so sleepy. I couldn't complete my breathing through my contractions because I kept falling asleep. We discovered that I had hot spots in my stomach. The epidural wasn't working in those areas so when a contraction passed through I could feel EVERYTHING. It was awful. I was crying and begging Greg to just keep me awake so I could remember to breathe. The worst part was I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything...not even water. They allowed me 1-2 ice chips every hour and I had two popsicles.
At 3pm I was 9.5cm dilated. I would be able to start pushing at 10cm. They said once I started pushing it could be an additional 2-3 hours. At 6pm I was still 9.5cm dilated. Nothing was progressing. During those three hours they discovered that Liam had a bowel movement and could potentially swallow it. This meant that as soon as he was delivered he would need to be taken so they could suction this out of him. We also discovered that my cervix was starting to swell. At this point we had a new doctor. This was actually one of the doctor's I wanted to deliver him so I was happy to see her. She said, given the circumstances, I could either continue to wait on the .5cm or go into a c-section. She also said that I would be delivering a big baby, she was just unsure how big he actually was. I immediately said I wanted a c-section. Greg was extremely nervous for this. He wanted to make sure I would be safe given all the medicine I had taken that day. The doctors assured him I would be fine and off to surgery we went.
I thought I would be more nervous to have the surgery, but I was ready to be out of pain. I had to go into the operating room alone and Greg was able to come in 20 minutes later. I felt so bad when I saw Greg's eyes. He was a nervous wreck. I on the other hand was thanking everyone telling them, "This is the best I've felt all day!" The procedure only took 20 minutes. When he was pulled out Greg got to stand up and see him. I loved watching his face the first time he saw his son. Liam was taken to the nursery and Greg was able to see him a few minutes later. Greg brought Liam to me so I could meet our son. I was really groggy but I do remember the first time I saw him. After I gave him a kiss Greg and Liam were back to the nursery and I joined them a little while later.
Although this was not the ideal situation I'm glad we went through with the c-section. The doctor told us that based on his size and position in my womb we would have had to have a c-section whether we liked it or not. There was no way he was coming out on his own.
The first time I saw his wild crazy hair!
A family of 3!
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