labor all began (sort of ) when I was just shy of 36 week pregnants. i had been contracting quite a bit since 24 weeks, but no signs of preterm labor so i was not concerned. on the morning of april 3rd i was having mild contractions every 3-5 minutes and a little bit of nausea. i was scheduled to see my partner for a regular appointment a few days later so we opted to bump it up. i was super shocked when she checked my cervix and said that i was 4cm dilated! we decided to cancel my afternoon appointments and after i finished the morning, i could simply go home and rest. by the time noon came, my contractions had picked up a bit so she rechecked and said i was between a 4 and 5 and his head was lower than before. we went to the hospital thinking he was on his way. alas, he stayed put like a good boy! i was so relieved. i spent the next week and a half taking it easy, working part time, and just trying to get to full term. success!
2 weeks later on 4/18 i did a quick ultrasound on myself (job perk!) and noticed that the amniotic fluid level was really low. this was confirmed and the decision was made to induce labor. i called my hubby, picked up my daughter, waited for childcare to arrive for sweet L, and headed to the hospital around 6pm.
we started antibiotics and just a little bit of pitocin to get contractions started. i needed 4 hours of antibiotics before my water was broken. i went ahead and got my epidural and was 5cm dilated before we had done much of anything. we had one little scary minute when my nurse came into reposition me and then asked my family to step out. i started paying attention at this point and realized that my little guy's heart rate had dropped. She called for terbutaline to stop my contractions and asked them to page my doctor. My nurse broke my water during all of the commotion to place an internal heart rate monitor and we realized that I had quickly changed to 7cm and his head had moved down. Thankfully after five LONG minutes of his heart rate being in the 60's, it returned to normal. We gave him a 30 minute breather before restarting pitocin, but the terbutaline worked SO well that it took a couple of hours to get contractions going again. At midnight the contractions had just become regular, and my cervix remained unchanged. Silver lining is that this meant his birthday would be 4/19 which I thought was fun since Lofton is 5/19. My nurse came back in at 1:15 and asked if I felt pressure. I told her just a little bit, but when she checked my cervix it was baby time! Dr. Holt came in and asked me to do a practice push before she got all ready for delivery. I started to take a deep breath and she said, "whoa, nevermind. don't move until i get ready." 1 and a half contractions later at 1:39am, my precious baby boy was here and perfect in every way. Everything was so smooth and easy that it was totally surreal. Recovery was a breeze and 24 hrs later I was ready to go home. Little did I know that on our first night home, poor Lofton would come down with a stomach bug.... oh well, the life of having kiddos :)
Lofton could not have been more excited. When she walked in, she dodged my hug to go running to her brother, "It's baby Everett! I'm so excited!"
Ready for Daddy to hand that baby over!
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