Baby A's Birth Story Part 1

Caution, this post might be a little graphic, although I'll try to spare some of the details.  I have many friends who are pregnant right now who may not want to read this until after their little bugs are born.  Baby A's birth was not very easy.  I've decided to break this post up into two parts as it is a LONG story.  This is part 1.

Anderson's birth seemed to be a several day event that actually started on Friday March 22nd.  I had gone to bed around 11:00 on Thursday and had fallen quickly asleep.  Dave had stayed up playing a game on his iPad.  Around midnight I woke up with a big gush and announced to Dave, "my water broke."  We kinda stared at each other in a freak out style and quickly packed up our stuff.  I called my doctor and she told me to head to the hospital. 

At the hospital, the nurse and doctor did a few tests to see if my water had indeed broken.  First was a litmus test with a little PH strip.  That test said yes, my water had broken.  Then the doctor did a "fern test" which was not comfortable to say the least.  That test came back negative.  What?  So the doctor sat me up in bed and let gravity do it's magic for an hour.  After an hour I had the fern test done again (ouch!) and again it was negative.  They sent me home.

Throughout the remainder of the night and morning I continued to leak.  A lot.  So I called the doctor's office and they sent me back to the hospital.  Again I passed the litmus test.  This time my personal doctor was on-call at the hospital and she was the one who did the fern test.  Again it came back negative.  We concluded the leaking was something else.  Once again, I was sent home.

The weekend was pretty lazy.  We were being induced on Wednesday the 27th, so we just began to prepare ourselves and our house for the new arrival.  Also over the weekend I started to have real contractions although they didn't really go anywhere.

Sunday/Monday in the middle of the night the contractions got serious.  They hurt.  A lot!  I began to time them.  Around 3:00am Monday the contractions were 5 minutes apart, lasting over a minute, and had been like that for over an hour.  I woke Dave up and we drove into the hospital yet again.  Trip #3.  Thank goodness the hospital is only 15 minutes away.  I got all hooked up to the machines and began getting evaluated.  The contractions were BIG, off the charts big, but I was only 1cm dilated.  The doctor sent me on a walk for an hour to see if anything would change.  They were not quite ready to quantify me as being in active labor.   I walked around the empty hospital for an hour in terrible pain.  With every contraction I had to stop and hug the wall and with each contraction I felt like I had to pee.  A million stops in the bathroom later, we were back up in the evaluation room.  Unfortunately, nothing had changed - only 1cm.  They decided to send me home.  What?!  I was in terrible pain from the contractions and they wanted me to go home?  They told me to take some Tylenol and some Benadryl and try to relax.  They thought for sure I would be back later in the day.

The Tylenol and Benadryl knocked me and the contractions out.  By the afternoon I felt like a zombie, but was doing better.  This was definitely annoying.  I spent the rest of the day basically resting in bed. 

Around midnight I was woken up with contractions yet again.  They weren't terrible but uncomfortable enough that it would wake me up every time.  By 4:00am, they were strong and close together - like every four minutes.  All I could do was sway and moan and breathe to get through them.  I did not want to go to the hospital as I was afraid they'd send me home yet again.  I had my last doctor's appointment at 9:30am and I was going to try to make it until then and let my own doctor evaluate me.  Around 6:00 the contractions went back to 8 minutes and I was able to take a shower.  Well, I took a lot of showers during this time, actually.  It helped with the pain.  I tried to eat some breakfast, but only could manage a half bowl of Cheerios.  Finally at 9:00 we headed to the doctor.

The contractions continued and I felt totally self-conscious to be in the wait room trying to get through my contractions.  I would sit in my seat and sway as little as I could and just breathe.  Dave would rub my back.  The nurse happened to see me and asked me how I was doing.  I let her know I was having contractions and she thought I was probably in labor.  I asked her if she could get me back in a room right away and she said she couldn't because the doctor wasn't there yet.  You have got to be kidding me!  I'm making everyone uncomfortable, including myself.  Finally I was called back and the doctor walked in, took one look at me, and said, "I know that look.  That look is labor."  She did my exam and I was 2cm.  She said it was time to go to the hospital (again, #4) and she would go ahead and call letting them know I was coming and that I would like the epidural.  I figured if she was sending me to the hospital they were not going to send me home again.  Luckily, we had already put our bags in the car and we were on our way.

Would our fourth trip to the hospital finally get me admitted?  Was I finally in real, active labor?  Stay tuned for the rest of the story...