It has been one month since we welcomed our newest family member, so I decided to take advantage of his nap and write down my labor and delivery, which did not go as I expected at all (but do they ever?).
Let me begin by saying that labor is something that has worried me for a long time, thanks in part to watching The Making of Me when I seven (after which I told my mom I was never having kids haha). I have a very low pain tolerance and was not looking forward to the whole experience, but was determined to be prepared, so I read lots of blog posts and took a course offered through our local hospital.
In regards to a birth plan, I didn’t really have one. I just knew I wanted an epidural and that I wanted to donate the babies cord blood. Sweet and simple, since I know anything and everything can happen during delivery and there is only so much you can plan. However, I did assume baby was going to be late since I had no signs or symptoms of labor. The opposite occurred with my due date being November 22 and baby arriving 10 days early on November 12.
The week before we had baby, my husband was on a night shift rotation at the hospital. He never really got back on a normal schedule and kept waking up around 2-3 am which of course woke me up as well since by that point sleep was difficult.
On Saturday, November 12th at 3:30 am, I woke up to my husband watching something on the iPad in bed. I tried to go back to sleep but was having some cramping which made it difficult. After about 30 minutes I realized that the pain was coming and going so I decided to start tracking it. I was having contractions but they were inconsistent. We decided that just in case, we would install the car seat and then stick with our original plan of going to the local farmers market.
After going to the market and doing a little shopping, we went home and I called the Labor & Delivery line. By that point my contractions were averaging 40 seconds and were every 4-5 minutes. The nurse on the phone told me to take a Tylenol, rest for an hour, and if they were still persistent to come in. An hour later (around 2 pm), we headed to the hospital fully expecting to be sent home. To everyone’s surprise, I was already dilated 8 centimeters and they immediately admitted me and sent for the anesthesiologist to perform the epidural. Ironically enough, the epidural was the most painful part of the whole experience since she had to do it twice. The first time it didn’t go in properly which was painful on top of the contractions that were very strong by that point. However, once it took affect I was able to finally relax for a bit.
A few hours later they broke my water, and around 8:30 pm it was time for me to push! Our baby was born at 10:25 pm on November 12th and my husband was actually able to deliver him which was exciting.
The past month has been no cake walk with fussy evenings and sleepless nights, but we love our sweet little boy and have been taking advantage of all the snuggles while we can.
