The next morning, we woke up at 4am to get the car packed, to eat, and to make last minute preparations only to call at 5am and be told to come in at 8am. So all three (four) of us took a short nap. We arrived at the hospital promptly at 8am. I was induced at around 9:30am and was in much pain almost immediately after the pitocin started. I was in so much pain from getting my cervix checked that I couldn't breathe.....I was finally stretched to about a 4.5 dilation around noon.....then the NP broke my water. Talk about a flood! (Sorry if this is too much- I'm writing this for the sake of remembering) I literally gasped for an epidural the minute she stretched me and broke my water. As soon as the nurses sat me up I remember repeating, "water is still coming!-a bunch of it, oh my, oh my, it's still coming out". What a weird feeling it is for your water to break by the way.
About 15 minutes later it was epidural time. As I sat up the anesthetist had me drop my shoulders and lean my head into Eli's stomach......she kept telling me to relax. Really, Relax?! Anyways, the epidural was painless compared to the contractions. God Bless those who go all natural. God Bless them. NOT FOR ME. I quickly became numb from the waist down. It was glorious, just glorious. Until, that is, I sat on that bed with absolute dead weight legs for the remainder of my labor. My mom and husband frequently massaged my legs and I kept asking, "I don't even feel like those are mine. They hurt so bad." It was weird because I couldn't feel my legs but I could feel the stagnation of them on the bed. God Bless my mom and husband.....they helped so much! I was able to rest some, and even had some chicken broth with lemonade popsicles and jello (I hate Jello). Towards the end of labor I was begging Eli to give me a bite of cantaloupe because I was so hungry......didn't happen. From about noon until 8pm, I didn't dilate much. I went from about a 4.5 to a 6. Did I mention that getting my cervix checked after the epidural was easy too? Again, God Bless those women who go natural. At this point, a chance of c-section was getting close and more frequently talked about (Praise God He had other plans).
After the nurses shift change at about 7pm, I saw a change in progress. So here I'm going to insert some credit to the new nurse on duty. Instead of talking about her upcoming wedding and coming to check on me every few hours (which the previous nurse did), the new nurse was in our room every 15 minutes reading my contraction strips, recording information, and upping my pitocin. My contractions then kicked into gear. By around 11pm, I knew Noah was ready. Even so, no one would check me until 12:30am on May 9th. I kept looking at my mom saying, "He's right there and ready to come out." At that point poor Eli was sitting upright on the couch passed out until I started to feel pain again and got loud. At around 12:30am, the new shift midwife came in and checked me. Of course Noah was ready.......I was a little frustrated at that point that no one listened to me. I gave one push and they made me stop in order to get prepped for delivery. About 45 minutes later, they were ready to start. I was exhausted at this point, and didn't want to push long. The Midwife looked at me and said, "Now, this could take up to 3 hours." OH HECK NO. I pushed over a span of four contractions.....the entire pushing part lasted less than 10 minutes. And bam.....out comes our 9 pound, 12 ounce precious boy, NOAH JOHN. May 9th, 2012 at 1:31am. Yes, it was all worth it- All 18 hours or so. We love him so much!
