Finally-A Baby Story!

Labor started Tuesday morning (Jan 13th). On my way to drop Ethan off at work I felt cramping and contractions in my uterus. I told him I had a feeling something was going to happen that day. I can't claim to be all-knowing, however, because I said that same thing many mornings. I decided to pay attention to the contractions and their timing. I drove home, watched the Today show, ate, drank some water and laid down (on my left side of course) for a nap to see if they would go away. I did actually fall asleep, so I figured Harvey, the uterus was just teasing. I woke up at 11:30 and noticed the contractions return. I started counting at noon and they were six minutes apart. By this time I was doing my best to not get my hopes up, but the contractions did seem to hurt more than usual.

I remember Mom calling to see if she should go ahead and pick up an extra shift at work, or stay home just in case. Moms know best, I guess.

My memory of the next few hours is a blur, a blend of the following: calling my sister, Natalie, texting Ethan at work, craving Chick Fil A, pacing, last minute packing, more trying not to get my hopes up, painful contractions, telling Ethan he better get me Chick Fil A, wondering if I should be driving to pick Ethan up, or if I should be driving at all.

I went ahead and picked Ethan up from work. I stayed on campus most of the drive, which is good because the speed limit is 20 MPH and by this point contractions were slightly debilitating. Flocks of students who have just sunk into their semester gave me weird looks as they crossed the cross walk and I gripped the steering wheel in pain. I contracted on and off as he drove us through the Chick Fil A drive thru and then home. We spent a couple hours trying to distract ourselves, calling family members, attempting to watch 30 Rock and packing some more (I have no idea what I threw into that bag last minute). By 5:00 PM I decided enough is enough and we went to the hospital.

When we got there I thought I would go ahead and walk around outside in this pretty pond area they have. I figured, once admitted I would be walking the hospital halls, so why not walk around in the fresh air while I could? We did a couple laps, stopping for contractions until I had to go to the bathroom. We stepped inside the lobby and while I was using the bathroom -cover your eyes, boys- I lost my mucus plug, a mucusy barrier held in the cervix, protection between the amniotic sac and the outside world. Yay! That means some kind of dilating has to be going on, right? I can't tell you that, now can I? It would just spoil the next couple paragraphs.

Bye bye plug, hello labor & delivery! To prevent kidnappings, the door to the labor & delivery floor is locked. You have to pick up this phone and a nurse lets you in. Those nurses love to sit around casually at the nurses station and ask you all kinds of questions about your address and blood type as if this is any ole day of your life, like you're not screaming in pain and hanging on to your husband's neck just to stay standing. Then came triage. Triage is not my favorite. Its basically where they send you if they aren't 100% convinced you're in labor. "Is this her first child? What's that? You've been here once before on a false alarm? Oh, go ahead and take her to triage B." In triage, there's always (and by always, I mean the 2 times I've been in it) some sad story on the other side of the curtain and no nice hot tubs like there are in the real rooms.

Once Ethan and I made ourselves at home in triage B, a nurse came in, strapped Harvey up to a contraction monitor and a heart rate monitor for Carver and checked my cervix. Drum roll please...1 cm. I wish they would invent an at-home dilation test. Or maybe they could offer a leisure course to husbands for checking the cervix. I'd send Ethan in a heart beat, because that is the worst news ever! Ok, maybe not ever, but I was disappointed. The sweet nurse said we could use a labor and delivery room, hot tub and all for a couple hours to see if anything progressed. After a couple hours of walking the halls and using the tub, I was still at 1 cm (the goal is 10 cm.). Because we live so close, the doctor and nurse suggested I go home with some Ambien to help me sleep and come back when the contractions got worse.

Have you ever taken Ambien? When something is waking you up every 4 minutes? It made me pretty crazy. At one point I thought I was giving birth in a grocery cart at Publix. I thought there were 3 people in my bed. I asked Ethan why my body was doing this to me. Somehow 8 confusing hours went by and the Ambien started to wear off as my mom and Ethan's mom arrived with bagels. Mentally, I was exhausted, but I also had a jittery kind of energy that caused a lot of pacing. By 11:00 AM on Wednesday, I decided it was time to go back to the hospital.

This time they sent me directly to a real room! What a relief. Then the nurse checked my cervix and said I was 4 cm. dilated. That was even more of a relief. Finally, I was technically in labor. For the next 5 hours I split my time sitting on a pill-shaped excercise ball and in the hot tub. Ethan was such a great labor coach. He was by my side the entire time and when I thought I was too exhausted to breathe, he pulled me through it. Up until this point, I was planning on a natural labor. Around 5:00 in the hot tub it was hard to remember why I didn't want an epidural in the first place. I asked the nurse to check my cervix again, thinking if I was 7 or 8 cm dilated I would go without the medicine. I had only dilated another half a centimeter! Bring on that epidural. What a great decision that was. I got to take a little nap, invite family members back in and the doctor decided to go ahead and break my water.

After my water broke, my cervix quickly dilated to about 6 cm. However, the epidural and the fact that I wasn't on my feet (because of the epidural) slowed contractions down quite a bit. Oh yeah... now I remember why I was trying to go natural. Around 9:00, the doctor suggested I use Pitocin to speed things along. After about 30 hours of labor, I was on board. An hour later and I was at 10 cm! They took the next hour or so to turn down the epidural so I would have enough sensation to push. By 11:00 PM I was ready to deliver this baby! Ethan was on one side of the bed, the nurse on the other. They each held a leg and I pushed 3 times with each contraction. Wow. Pushing is about the hardest, most satisfying physical work I could imagine.

With only 10 minutes left in the day, I was positive Carver was seconds away from birth and the nurse tells me to wait. The doctor on call was 3 rooms down delivering another baby! I guess Carver was meant to be born the next day. And he was. At 12:14 AM, after the doctor ran into the room and my bed was converted (much like a transformer) to don stirrups, my sweet baby boy was born and placed right on my chest.

Surprisingly, the moments and hours that followed are perfectly clear in my memory. And probably my favorite ever.