Labor and Delivery

5:00 am April 5th- I was sleeping and my water broke. I ran to the bathroom and called for Adam. We called the dr. and she said to head for the hospital. The morning was surreal, I had just been to the dr. the day before and was still only 1 centimeter dialated so we were not expecting to go into labor any time soon. Evan had another plan......

Of course I remembered to have Adam take a picture right before leaving for the hospital. This is at 38 weeks exactly. Lucky was very confused about the commotion going on that morning...

The first thing we noticed as we began to drive was the fog....the first foggy morning of the spring. We got to the hospital and there was no room left in the "stork parking." So Adam left me in the front of the hospital sitting in a wheel chair and went to park the car. He felt awful and sprinted back to me across the parking lot. When we got up to triage we learned that I was the fifth patient to come in in the last half hour. We sat for almost an hour before anyone checked me in, but it was OK because my contractions had barely even started

Once the nurse came in she said she had to test to see if my water really broke, Adam and I looked at each other and said, if this wasn't my water that broke then we have other problems. Sure enough, I was really leaking fluid so we were admitted and taken to a delivery room. The doctor had us walk around for the first hour to try to get things started. After walking I was still only a centimeter and stayed that way for about 6 hours......

I tried lots of positions to get him moving - my favorite was the birthing ball

As I got closer to the three-four centimeters needed for the epidural, I was in more and more pain. Adam was great, let me squeeze his hand and sat by my side the whole day. I thought the 21 hours of labor went fast....he has another opinion, but at least he got to watch the final four games! The epidural was the best thing ever...I didn't have any pain from the needle and felt only pressure during the contractions.

Here I am after the epidural...much happier!

Around 10:00 we began to question whether Evan was going to be born on the 5th or 6th. I finally started to dialte at a fast pace and went from 7 to 8 to 9 centimeters in a matter of minutes. The nurse even set up the room for deliver. Then Evan got stuck. After close to 5 hours I didn't go any farther. The nurse had me in every known position to try to get him to turn. I was even on my hands and knees on the bed for a while! Also I had a hot spot where my epidural began to wear off and I was in a lot of pain. The nurse mentioned that I may need to have a c section, and I was done. I didn't want to take any more pain and just wanted Evan out! Once everyone was in agreement that I would have c-section, things moved fast. Adam got to put scrubs on and they prepped me. From the clock you can see that it was 1:32 and we were still in the delivery room. They had me in the operating room and Evan out by 1:52!

Adam got to sit by my side through the whole c-section. He watched most of it. The delivery took about 10 minutes and then it took them about 40 minutes to sew me back up. During that time Adam got to watch them clean Evan up and then he got to hold him while sitting next to me. I did not feel anything during the c-section and the recovery has been great.

The next post will have Evan's first pictures!