Someday I will get this story written! It doesn't help that I started it earlier this week and somehow it didn't save!! Anyway, I figured putting it in 2 parts might help me get it done faster...
(All professional looking pics were taken by
Molly Johnson Photography. The rest are mostly by Dano)
Before I start I will warn you; it is going to be LONG (my labor was 32 hours!), but it's just as much for my memory as for your reading pleasure, so feel free to skim if you get bored with my millions of details, it will probably get ramble-y. There may be some graphic parts. Nothing too crazy, but if, like Dano, you can't even handle the word uterus, you may not want to continue ;) You've been warned, here we go!
It all started on December 28th at my weekly doctors appointment. I was 39.2 weeks and had only been barely 1cm dilated at previous appointments. My doctor was already discussing induction as she doesn't like to let patients go past 41 weeks. So I planned on asking her if she'd strip my membranes at the next appointment (for anyone who doesn't know, it's basically where she sweeps her finger around in the cervix to detach the bag of water from the side of the uterus in hopes of kick starting labor. But as with most things to induce labor, will only work if your body is ready). And she said "let's just do it today!" Which I was not mentally prepared for since the process kinda freaked me out! I was still only 1cm and she did the membrane sweep (which wasn't nearly as bad as I was thinking or hearing about) and we discussed how there was also supposed to be a full moon that night and she told me they actually do believe in that in labor and delivery! I left feeling VERY crampy and not very hopeful. I went to work that day and bled and cramped all day, if it wasn't for my giant belly I would have sworn I just had my period because that's exactly what it felt like.
The bleeding and cramping continued ALL day and into the evening. I went to the grocery store for some dinner stuff and ingredients to make cheesecake for Dan's birthday on Sunday. I came home and made dinner through the cramps, which I would still just describe as menstral cramps; they didn't really have a start and stop just yet, but they were BAD. All day it really didn't cross my mind that maybe this was it, I thought I was just cramping from the membrane sweep and that was that. Well while we were eating dinner at about 7pm all of a sudden a "cramp" came on so bad that I had to set down my fork and actually breathe through it. It was over, I picked up my fork and continued eating. Dan says "ummm, what was that?!" But I STILL didn't really think it was anything. Until I started to realize, ok, now they are coming at intervals, they are having a definite start, peak, and end. But the one thing that was throwing me off was that they were all VERY low in my belly. I had always heard it described as your WHOLE belly, and your WHOLE uterus and even wrapping around your back. But I was only feeling this pain very low. So I texted my friend who had just recently had a baby she told me it could be it because everyone feels it differently and that I should definitely just start timing them. I started casually looking at the clock when one would come on and end, and noticed they were mostly 5 minutes apart with some longer some shorter.
Dano works 3rd shift at midnight, so he usually goes down for a "nap" at about 8pm and I just usually end up going to bed with him. I was SO excited to sleep in and have a 4 day weekend with New Years!! Well I think I lasted in bed about 10 minutes and realized that was NOT happening. There was no way I could just lay there, I was in tooooo much pain. So I went to the couch and decided to start officially timing these "cramps" with a handy contraction timing app on my phone! I would highly recommend one of those by the way! They were pretty consistently 5 minutes apart and around 60 seconds long with some variation here and there. I walked around a bit, TRIED to sleep, but that was not happening. I think at about 10pm I went in by Dan and told him I was dying (lol) and he went back to sleep (LOL). At about 11:15 when he got up for work he came to the livingroom and I said "I don't think you should go to work...." And so it began...
I still was worried that this wasn't going to be real and I had heard SO many stories about women getting sent home if they weren't in active labor. I knew I didn't want to get to the hospital too early anyway since I was hoping for a natural labor. I just kept thinking "if this is NOT real, I don't know how I'm going to get through the real thing!" and "if they sent me home feeling like this, I would die!" I couldn't sleep, I couldn't sit still, I couldn't do ANYTHING but breathe through these suckers. I think around 1am (or was it 3?) I called labor and delivery, the nurse (also Michelle!) pulled my chart and saw I wanted a natural labor and also encouraged me to stay home as long as I wanted. As long as my water wasn't broken and I could still feel the baby moving, I could stay as long as I felt comfortable. She told me to call her back in an hour and let her know how things are going. I also told her that I was feeling everything very low, so I was worried this wasn't real, and she told me that tells her that it probably IS real if I'm feeling it low...hmm, ok good to know!
So I did laps around the house, stopping to breathe, sat on my exercise ball, bounced on it, took a shower, took a bath, made some tea, tried to make sure my bags were packed (still not totally convinced we were going to the hospital, though I don't know WHY I was thinking that!) I leaned over, I swayed, I went on my hands and knees...you name it, I did it! Dano pulled all our little booklets from baby class and was reading things to me, we were both using my phone with the contraction app. When I was in the shower, he stood outside and I would yell to him when to start and stop one, haha. Same for if I went potty...speaking of potty, another thing that convinced me that this might be it was that my body was "emptying" itself, if you know what I mean! Multiple times! So we continued this all night, neither of us getting a wink of sleep...well Dan may have gotten a few winks, and I found it is actually possible to sleep in between contractions, yes for all 4 minutes! Being woken up to horrible pain is not a good time however.
Finally at about 6am I decided it was time to go to the hospital. I felt like I need to do something proactive, and I need to know that this was real and that I was making progress. We had already been going on about 11 hours of this! There was also a pretty good snowstorm outside, just like I'd always predicted there would be on the night I went into labor. So I called the hospital to tell her we were coming like she asked me to.
...wow this is getting long...sorry
We loaded up the car and took off. The drive was pretty miserable, and the pain had also been making me nauseous, so I was gripping a bucket most of the way there. We arrived around 6:30a and I got a ride in a wheelchair up to the birth center. I changed into a beautiful hospital gown and my nurse checked me - 3cm! Whoo-hoo! We have made progress from 1cm at my doc appointment. The nurse informed me this was it and we were staying! THANK GOD I was not getting sent home! Dan called my parents to let them know it was happening, but not to rush, because it would probably be awhile....and boy, was it!!
Here is a lovely picture of me in the middle of a contraction that Dan thought I would appreciate him taking...I didn't, and still don't.
(...to be continued...)
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