Adventures to Mommy Land: hello baby!

Around 8am on Sunday September 16th I woke up with a few contractions. They were not that strong or that fast so I just started playing Soduku and let James sleep. A little bit later James got up to make cinnamon buns and I got ready for the day. When you are pregnant everyone tells you these horrible stories about being in labor for like 30 hours and how the first baby always takes a long time so I figured I would probably get to watch part of the redskins game. So I prepared for it.

Well I was wrong. By the time James brought me a cinnamon bun I was in active enough labor to go to the hospital. You are supposed to have contractions every 5 minutes, that are 1 minute long and have them for at least 1 hour. Mine were only 2 minutes apart but were lasting only about 30 seconds. I decided to call the triage number to see if I could come to the hospital. They acted like I was not in labor but might as well come in anyway.

So we called the kennel, packed the car, loaded up the dog and got ready to leave. Unfortunatly Slider did not agree with this plan. Slider must have picked up on something because he went a little crazy. He ran around the house keeping away from James so he could not put the leash on. Then he decided he wanted to sit in the baby seat. Every time James got in the driver seat he jumped over the back seat into the baby seat and tried to climb up to the front with me. After 6 times of putting him back, we were able to keep him there and we were able to leave.

After dropping off the dog we headed to the Hospital. At this point we were still joking around and having fun. I mean it takes a while for babies to come right? I decided I did not want to walk in by myself. so we parked and walked together. We made it to the triage area of OB around 12:30 pm. They checked me in and I was 5 cm. Then they freaked out because my blood pressure was high. I wanted to say maybe it was because I was nervous BECAUSE I AM HAVING A BABY! After taking my blood pressure a few times and it not coming down the nurse says "well if it does not come down you might earn yourself admittance". I was like "WHAT!" I am in labor. What is required to gain admittance to Labor and Delivery? Then I was given an iv and they left us for a while.

James having fun

After about an hour of waiting around my contractions have gotten a lot worse and my hand hurts really bad. James finally listened to my complaining about my hand when I said something about it during a contraction And look! My iv infiltrated (for those non medical people that means that the fluid was not going into the vein) so James turned it off and found a nurse. That is when everyone picked up pace because they realized I was progressing faster then they thought I would. All of a sudden everyone runs into this tiny room and they are wheeling me to labor and delivery. I had 5 nurses there, 2 were trying to find a new place for an iv and every one else was getting things ready and calling doctors. After 5 sticks they got an iv and everything was set.

My board. James added the "Go Redskins"

Side note: Why would you ask a woman her medical history when she is having a contraction. Talking does not really work at that time. Also they had my history on file already. They asked if I have had surgery during a really bad contraction. I have an extensive surgical history. So instead of trying I point to James. He starts listing things off and then started adding procedures I have never had. Luckily my contraction ended around then so I could correct him or he would have kept going. He had already gotten rid of my appendix, who know what would have come next.

As nurses were starting to clear out James mentioned that the game was about to start. The nurse practically yelled at him "She is in labor, she does not have to watch football!". Lucky for James I defended him saying I was the fan and she said it was okay then and showed us how to turn on the tv. So the game came on but to be honest I was not watching much.

I had to wait about an hour for an epidural because there were 2 emergency c-sections happening. The Anesthesiologist also accused James of making me watch the football game. It was kind of nice to have so many people watching out for my viewing pleasure. Once I got my epidural life was nice again and I could watch some football :)

Before Epidural

After Epidural

Football game

They checked me again I was 7cm and they broke my water. 30 minutes later I was ready to push. I called the nurse and she was like "It has only been 30 minutes I don't want to check you again yet". About 10 minutes later they came back in because Emily's heart rate was erratic. And low and behold I was 10 cm and ready to push. They got everything ready and we started pushing. Everyone was joking and having a good time and 20 minutes later we had a baby girl!

I held her while James cut the cord and then after a while they took her to clean her up and weigh her. After getting her foot prints she kicked James so he had a new tattoo for the rest of the day.

Before being moved to postpartum I was told by the doctors and nurses several times that I need to make sure to get to the hospital fast for my next one because I was only in active labor for about 5 hours and it will go faster next time. Then in the next 2 days I was told again at least 4 times. They are really worried I am going to have a baby in the car.