Last you knew, July 30th, the day before my official "due date", I was told by my OB that baby was happy and I might go another 5-7 days. I had him sweep my membranes with the estimate of "today or tomorrow" and, of course, NOTHING HAPPENED. Friday came, so did the in-laws, and we spent the day at home. Joe came home that night. Not a single contraction. I had to convince them that if nothing happened overnight I would be completely fine to drive to the airport Saturday morning to get my mom by myself.
I got up on Saturday morning, August 1st, around 5:30 after Joe had left for drill. I had an easy morning and got ready to get my mom on time only to have Emi have a complete meltdown as I was trying to leave. I distracted her with some sort of sweet snack she doesn't usually get. It was probably a cookie. Nothing else was happening. The plan was to get my mom just after 10, get to the hospital around 10:30-11:00, have my biophysical profile, and be home by Emi's nap time.... nice try.
Getting my mom was easy. Everything was on time. It's once we got to the hospital that of course things took FOREVER. I was put in a triage room and hooked up to the monitor. The fetal heart tracing was quick. 20 minutes with a very happy baby heart rate and even a few contractions that I never felt. It reminded me of Emi's tracing the day she was born. Then I was taken to ultrasound and the COMPLETE thing was done. Not only did she measure amniotic fluid levels (they were HIGHER), she did fetal breathing movements, gross motor, and fine motor movement. She scored a perfect score, 10/10. Dang. I mean, GREAT! But, dang.
So then we went back down to triage to await my discharge. We sat there until after 1pm. When the nurse came back in she told me she had to give me a diagnosis of "false labor" and relayed the message from my OB to "Keep your appointment for Tuesday." WHAT!?!?! That was still 3 days away! In my head this baby was going to be 10 lbs by then - even though I knew that wasn't true. No one mentioned doing another membrane sweep, or anything at all. Just stay pregnant. I was so anxious at this point I thought there had to be something I could do. I wanted her to come so I didn't have to wait anymore.
So, that was the start of it all...
What happened next was we got home and my in-laws were so wiped out by the kids they couldn't get out the door fast enough. I could tell they wanted to get home and rest as soon as they could. So they left in the mid-afternoon. I debated what to do, and decided that castor oil was an option I was willing to try. It was either going to work or it wasn't. And at least if it didn't I wouldn't be constipated anymore for like a whole day again, maybe. So at 4:45pm I took another 2oz dose of castor oil.... and waited. The research indicates that castor oil will put approximately 50% of women into labor within 24 hours. What I failed to read was the recommendation that you take it in the morning after a good night's rest. Yeah, take note.
Joe came home around dinner time. Still nothing...save for the comfortable relief from constipation. We put the kids to bed on time at 8pm. I must have been feeling some contractions at this point because nursing Emi during a contraction made me cradle my belly. But, I don't remember this being of any real significance to me at this point. We came out of their room and they were so tired from grandparent fun and no nap that it wasn't awful putting them to bed.
We all sat on the couch and started watching Miss Congeniality on TV - even though we own it on DVD and could have saved ourselves commercials. Anyway, I began timing contractions at 8:20pm. They were about 40-50 seconds long and 3-5 minutes apart the whole movie. Now, if I listened to my OB, I should have just gone to the hospital after the first hour. But they were virtually painless and I wasn't convinced they wouldn't fizzle out like last week. So, we stayed home.
Joe went to bed, and my mom and I finished the movie just before 10pm. She went to bed and I went to my room to get in the tub. We both thought, "Good night, I'll see you in the morning!" I got in the tub and felt GREAT. It seemed like the contractions spaced out, I wasn't feeling much at all, and I was so comfortable I started falling asleep over the edge of the tub in the near dark. I figured at this point it was best to go to bed. I got out of the tub around 10:40pm and got in bed. Immediately after I laid down in bed the contractions got painful, lasting only 30-40 seconds, but they were also about 1 1/2- 2 1/2 minutes apart. I woke Joe up around 11:10pm and told him "I think we need to call your parents back" because the plan was for them to drive back over here to be with the kids while my mom came with us to the hospital.
We debated for awhile whether it was really time to call them, if I should wake my mom up yet. What should we do? I figured I was going to get back in the tub while we waited for his parents. I got into the bathroom, couldn't stand up anymore, and had to turn right around and tell Joe, "I think we need to go. NOW. We can't wait. I have to go wake my mom up." Joe's parents didn't answer their phone. I woke my mom up and told her we had to leave now and we got into the car. We even remembered to put a large puppy training pad on the seat in case my water broke. Joe's parents called as we pulled out of the driveway to tell us they were too tired to drive safely, which we'd already figured, but wanted them to know we were heading in.
It took us 16 minutes from decision point to get out the door and on the road, or so says the contraction timer gap. I was already sleepy tired from getting up at 5:30, my mom wasn't going to be in the room with us now, and I was starting to sing through contractions. I told Joe I wasn't feeling brave and I just wanted an epidural. He said, "You can do whatever you want." I insisted. He kept mum, though he was thinking, "you're not getting an epidural in time..." We got to the hospital just before midnight.
We went to the ER and Joe ran in while I slowly made my way out of the front seat. Joe says he told them his wife was about to have a baby and upon describing the rapid timeline of my previous two births they wheeled me very quickly to L&D triage. I'm "AHHH'ing!" at this point through my contractions. It was Quiet. There was no one else. After that people started coming in. Joe joked, "Someone must have said the "Q" word." The all time jinx for nursing staff to go from a nice night to chaos.
Now, I give all credit to the L&D nurses (I have NO idea what they looked like or what their names were, haha) who took Joe seriously when he told them there was a baby coming, quickly, but still maintained their casual manner before an official cervical exam. I'm sure they've seen all sorts of hollering women not even in active labor. My contractions were still about 1-2 minutes apart. I was STILL insisting I wanted an epidural. I think it was the first thing I told everyone. The nurse checked me at 8cm and bulging bag. I knew there wasn't going to be an epidural...man, transition SUCKS. She went to the door and rambled off a very long list of names of people to call RIGHT NOW. The nurse asked if we'd called my OB on our way in - we hadn't. I'm that patient who didn't know how to call him myself. They paged him at home. He had apparently JUST gone home to feed and let his dog out because there was no one in labor. He was about 25 minutes out. I thought, "Nooooo, I'm not going to last that long!! We should have called on our way in!"
There was a flurry of bodies in the room starting my IV, drawing blood, asking intake questions, getting vitals, and waiting for an L&D room to take me ASAP. I hollered at one point, "I'm feeling PUSHY!" and they all said, "No, no, no! No pushing!" It was a different feeling than Emi's pushy feeling, but it was still intense. They wheeled me to LDR8, and I managed to shimmy myself over to the bed grabbing the bedrail for dear life.
Dr. O was still about 10-15 minutes out, but the nurses gestured that the hospitalist was in the room on standby. I briefly waved. At this point I wasn't getting a break. The contractions were coupling before one would actually go away for a whole minute - maybe. I know I repeated again that I was getting pushy - cervical lip - and the same nursing response, "No, no, no! Don't push. We're waiting as long as we can for Dr. O to get here." I was thinking, "NO! I'm NOT!" Then from somewhere magic Dr. O walked into the room and we were ready to push. The nurses wanted to do all sorts of things like breaking down the bed, getting stirrups out, and offering an amnihook to break my water. Dr. O said no need for anything, I could stay on my side, and they only lowered the foot of the bed slightly.
I looked at the clock somewhere around 12:45am. I gave a few pushes and not much happened. I was in an internal battle between the oh so famous pushes where you hold your breath and bear down and my own comfortable, less forceful, open breath pushes. I had one weird pushy sensation accompanied by an "AHHH!" holler and the water bag exploded across the room! Not kidding, the WHOLE room. Joe said he missed it because he blinked. I was positive that the baby would just come out with the next push - or something. That's what's supposed to happen with third plus babies, right?! NOPE!!!!
It was another few pushes or so before Dr O told me, "Babies like to be in and babies like to be out - they don't like being in between." Obviously, many women push for 2, 3, 4 hours with no trouble, and I didn't get to see the tracing so I'm not totally sure how dramatic her decelerations were or how prolonged they may or may not have been, but I got the message that baby needed to come out. But, I wasn't feeling that pushing sensation I had with Emi at all and my contractions had THANKFULLY spaced out a little. Dr O told me my lack of pushing sensation was because he was pretty sure she was face up, which I was pretty sure of too from only having ever felt arms and legs out my front and frequently attempting my own Leopold's maneuvers. They asked me if I wanted to get on my hands and knees and see if would help her rotate. The idea of moving off of my left side and using muscles to support my body weight against gravity sounded AWFUL. No, thank you! So, Dr. O checked to see how far down she was because if she wasn't coming down I was going to have to change positions. She was 3+ (AKA ALMOST out) get with the program, Michaela! So, Dr. O started pushing on the nerves for me to cause the most uncomfortable need to push ever.
As many times as everyone kept reinforcing to me that if I just held my breath and pushed she would come out faster I was really struggling to do it. Open breath pushing was so much more comfortable and it stopped the pain of the contractions and gave me some sensation of pushing at the same time. I remember doing the same thing with Lincoln, only I had a stronger urge to push with him. I looked at the clock periodically and around 1:10am I realized I'd been pushing longer than I'd pushed with either Emi or Lincoln. Between contractions I was totally relaxed, I was able to put my legs down and just rest on Joe, whose fingers I was otherwise CRUSHING! I was beginning to have dramatic fears of needing forceps or vacuums or her being stuck and needing a c-section - for no good reason other than I was anxious, tired, and in pain. I knew I had to rally and really start pushing to get her out. It was going to happen whether I wanted to feel it or not.
Unlike Lincoln and Emi's births, I distinctly felt the ring of fire that describes crowning this time. HOLY CRAP! The hollering/screaming escalated because OMG, it HURT. And it was taking SOOOOOO LONG in my opinion. I had somehow moved from my left side to on my back-ish and mostly sideways in the bed. I was bracing my right leg on Dr O's shoulder, but I was still on my side enough my left leg was on the bed. I was half eyes open and half introverted at this point. I saw her head coming out through the panting breaths that controlled the expulsion of her head. Joe saw she was completely face up, and the moment her head was out I felt INSTANT relief. Dr O told me, "Now, stop. Open your eyes and look at me. Grab your baby and bring her out." So I let got of Joe's fingers, grabbed her as her shoulders were coming out and brought my own baby to my chest. Amelia Mae was born at 1:13am on August 2nd. I started crying - the first birth I actually cried.
We are so grateful for a fast, relatively easy birth and our healthy, easy-going baby girl. So much love!
