The details

Well, I've been wanting to write this blog for awhile now, but I'm just getting to it now. I want to record the details about my labor and delivery because this blog is my journal. If you're not interested in that type of thing...just enjoy the pictures! :) (I know I look horrible in the picture to the right, but I just had to put it in because Carter looks so funny! :)

On Thursday, 3/27, around 6:30 or 7, I started noticing what I thought were contractions. When I had Mason, I didn't start to feel contractions until my water had already been broken for 4 hours and I was at the hospital, so I wasn't totally sure. I timed them and they were coming between 10 and 20 minutes apart. I didn't want to let myself hope that I was in labor, 'cuz I didn't want to be disappointed if I wasn't, so I just kept telling myself it was not the real thing.

Once David got home from school around 8:30, I was still having them pretty consistent every 10 minutes. I kept doing the things I normally do, cleaning up after dinner, the laundry, putting Mason to bed. After Mason was in bed, I decided to lay on the couch and rest and see if they went away. There was a video that they made me watch at one of my appointments about pre-term labor, and that's what they said to do to see if they are the real thing. Well...they definitely kept coming. David kept asking me "are you having one?" when he would notice me all of the sudden jump up and walk around trying to find a more comfortable position. At this point they were about 7 minutes apart, sometimes sooner so we decided to call the doctor. They told me that we should probably come on in.

I was still worried that it wasn't the real thing, and I told her that I didn't want to get there just for them to send me home. She assured me that they wouldn't do that. So, at around 11:30 or so we bundled up Mason, got our bags together and left. I thought about doing a blog on the way out, but decided against it...just for the same reason, I really didn't want to get my hopes up that the baby was coming..I didn't believe that this was really it. We dropped Mason off at my parents house, and the contractions were 4-6 minutes apart at that time. It was a lot harder to bear them when I was strapped in the same position.

The hospital that we have to go to for our insurance is about 45 minutes away, in the middle of Downtown. There are lots of stoplights close together and it seemed like it was taking forever. Especially when the contractions were coming so quickly.

When we finally got there, I went to check in, and they had my information because I had called earlier. The girl told us that they didn't have a room clean, and asked if we wanted to wait (I was thinking...well we're not going home, what other choice do we have?!) She asked how I was doing and I said the contractions were coming every 4 minutes. Apparently I did a good job of convincing everyone that I wasn't in that much pain because they made us wait in the waiting room for 20 minutes while they cleaned up an examination room.

Once I finally got into the examination room, they still didn't believe that I was very far along in labor-they hooked me up to some monitors and said that they would be back in 20 minutes to see if I could stay or not. I asked if I could stand up during the contractions, 'cuz it was a lot harder when I had to lay on the table. The lady said that would be fine. When she came back in 20 minutes, she realized that the readout wasn't good enough because I was standing and said she would have to get another 20 minutes with me laying down.

FInally, she must have realized that I was really in labor 'cuz she said she could check to see how far I was dilated and if I was at least a 5, I could go on up. Well, she was pretty surprised and things started moving pretty quickly when whe realized that I was already dilated to a 10 (or so she thought...she couldn't really believe it, she said, because I was not acting like I was that far along). Just because I wasn't screaming and yelling, and was responding pleasantly to them, no one believed that I was really this close. Anyways, she asked how long I had pushed with Mason, and I told her 30 minutes, and that made her even more nervous. She said we had to get upstairs right now. I immediately asked if I could order my epidural then. She said I probably didn't have time! I was so worried, I asked to please just see if I could get it 'cuz I really didn't want to do a natural birth. She said she would see, but I could tell she didn't really think that I would be able to.

When we got up to the room, there was a full staff waiting for me. They were all prepared to help me have the baby right then. They were going to check me one more time and started hooking up the monitors. This is when everything started to change. They realized that Carter's heartbeat was unusually high...so they got an ultrasound machine out. I didn't realize what was happening until the Doctor said "Your baby's breech...we have to do a C-section". Wow, I was definitely not expecting that. Two days earlier, at my appointment, they had said that he was still head down...no wonder it seemed like he had been moving around a lot!

My water still hadn't broken but they could see that it was close and we didn't have much time before I would want to start to push. I was having terrible contractions at this point and was just so worried that Carter would try to come feet first before they had a chance to do the C-section.

They started prepping me and it was just a whirlwind. THey had to knock me totally out, and I don't remember them even giving me the anesthetic...just all of the stuff right before. When I woke up I was really groggy and the incision hurt a ton! But...baby Carter was now here and so things were looking up!

Now we have another precious little boy and are so happy to have him here!

This is after we got home from the hospital. Mason had been running on very little sleep and he just crashed. He and Daddy had a lot of fun together while Carter and I were in the hospital.