Toby’s Birth Story: Part 1

I really need to write this birth story before any of the other details get fuzzy.  People keep asking me how the labor and delivery was and some things I barely remember now!  This is going to be long so bare with me :)

…

Early on Friday morning, June 15th, I woke up around 6ish when Hubby did as he was getting ready to go to work.  I remember feeling very crampy and having some back pain.  It was very similar to having menstrual cramps, but they didn’t make me think anything was going on at that point.  Hubby left to go to work; I walked downstairs to make some oatmeal and then went back to bed to try to go back to sleep.  However the back pain was getting worse if I lied down, so I sat up in bed and finished writing thank-you notes from the baby shower that I seriously procrastinated on finishing.  I watched TV for a couple hours and then called my mom at work around 10ish to get an address from one of her co-workers.  She asked how I was feeling and I let her know that I was pretty crampy and she said immediately that I was probably in early labor and should start timing the feeling of the crampiness starting and ending if I could.  At that point the cramps were constant so I couldn’t really time anything. 

I called Hubby at work and let him know not to rush home, because I definitely didn’t feel separate contractions, but I told him my mom thought I was in early labor.  I had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for 1:45 that afternoon, so we both agreed he would come home and go to the appointment with me, as my mom told me I should pack my bags in the car just in case they decided to send me to the hospital afterwards.  Since I was still in the process of finishing thank-you notes, I asked Hubby to get me a couple packs of stamps on his way home…I decided the notes needed to be sent out that afternoon if Baby C was really on his way :)  While I waited for him to get home, I took a long shower and made sure to shave my legs since I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to do that again.

Hubby got home around 11:30 but let me know that there was a nail in his tire and his car was showing it as being low pressure.  Of course his car was the one we were planning on taking to the hospital, so Hubby had to move over the car seat to my car and make sure everything was installed correctly.  I also didn’t have a ton of gas in my car, and since I still wasn’t having painful contractions at this point, he left quickly to get gas, grab a bagel for me, and coffee and lunch for himself.  When he left, I took a quick walk down to the mailboxes to mail out the damn notes.  I could feel the crampiness starting and ending now, so I downloaded an app on my phone to start timing contractions.  They were about 5-6 minutes apart, lasting about 30 seconds or so each, but I could still talk through them as they were not painful.  It was still a couple hours before we would leave for my appointment, so we just watched TV and ate lunch to waste time.  I started drinking a lot of water at this point to keep myself hydrated.

We left for my appointment by 1:30 and when we got to the doctor’s office, I asked if I could sit in a room right away since I was having contractions and didn’t want to sit in the waiting room during them.  They were getting a little more painful but slow breathing helped me get through the peaks with no problem.  The nurse was having a hard time getting my blood pressure which freaked me out.  She found Baby C’s heartbeat right away, though, and it was still going strong.  My doctor came in to see me but didn’t seem too concerned when I told him I had been having contractions all morning.  He did an internal exam and I was only 2 cm dilated.  He said that I wouldn’t be able to talk through my contractions if my labor was further along, so he recommended we go back home and rest.  He said to call them back if my contractions got more intense or if my water broke.  He definitely made it seem like Baby C would not be coming today or even tomorrow – he joked that we may have a Father’s Day baby.  Worse part was he wanted me to schedule another appointment for the following week just in case!  I left feeling pretty discouraged.

We got back home and I tried to sleep for as long as I could.  I woke up about an hour later around 4ish to much stronger contractions.  Hubby made me some plain pasta with a butter sauce as I was only eating bland foods so I hopefully wouldn’t get sick later.  The contractions were still 5-6 minutes apart, and now they were lasting 45 seconds to a minute each.  Some of them were very intense, so I started using other positions besides sitting in bed.  I sat on the birthing ball for a little bit, but it didn’t do too much for my back pain and it was difficult to keep still when having contractions.  I eventually got in the shower and stood with my hands up on the wall in front of me so the shower stream was directed right on my lower back.  The hot water felt amazing, so I stayed in there for a good 20 minutes until a few contractions had passed.  I got back out and tried to lay down on my side to rest but the pain was getting worse and worse.  At this point I was squeezing Hubby’s hand during almost every contraction and taking in slow, deep breaths to make it past the peaks.  I was crying during some of them, but it felt good to cry and not hold in the tears.  It was around 7:30 when I got back in the shower as I was desperate for any relief of the constant back pain.  Hubby decided it was time to call the doctor as I had been having contractions for over 3 hours now that were about a minute long, every 5 minutes.  And I think when I started crying that freaked him out, so he figured it was time to go to the hospital.  I was nervous that I would be sent back if we came too early so I wanted to labor at home as much as possible.  However, the on-call doctor agreed I should come in when he called, so I got out of the shower, put on some sweats, and then grabbed a couple of old towels and a garbage bag to put over the front seat in case my water broke.  Right before we left I took one last bump picture – I was 39 weeks and 4 days in this and faking a smile soooo badly:

The car ride to the hospital actually wasn’t as bad as I imagined it would be.  I waited to finish a contraction right before we started the car, and then I called my mom on the way over so I was a little distracted.  Halfway through our conversation I had to hand the phone over to Hubby so he could talk to her while I did some deep breathing.  I probably had 3 or 4 contractions by the time we got there and I also remember having one in the parking garage.  Since we arrived after 8pm, we had to use the ER entrance.  A cop asked if I wanted a wheelchair to the maternity ward but I said I was okay to walk.  We shared an elevator with a young guy who clearly understood I was in labor and he was nice, asking if we knew what we were having and said “good luck” right before we got off on the fourth floor. 

Since Hubby had called earlier, they pre-registered me, which was nice since we didn’t have a ton of paperwork to fill out or sign.  We waited a few minutes until a nurse was ready to take me over to the triage area.  Hubby let her know right away about my back issues and how I would need to speak with an anesthesiologist.  I changed into a hospital gown, gave them a urine sample, and then sat on the bed until another nurse came in to take my vitals.  She asked me what my pain level was on a scale of 1-10, and I said a “6” which was pretty accurate considering how worse the pain would get over the next several hours…