In the last few weeks of my pregnancy, I had tons of what if thoughts. Labor and delivery, especially with the first baby, is full of unknowns. When will I go into labor? Will I wait until my scheduled induction? How long will it take? How bad will the pain be? What will she look like? The questions were running through my mind! I can say that through Madison's birth, I learned a lesson in patience and giving up control. A couple days after Madison was born, I told Eric that I felt like I was already forgetting certain parts of her delivery. He told me that was probably for the best. =) Here is Madison's long birth story, so we can remember it down the road.
On Wednesday, September 4th, I left school around lunch time to go to a meeting. On the way to the meeting, I wasn't feeling great, so I stopped to get some lunch and a drink to bring with me. During the meeting, my back was hurting pretty bad, which was not something totally abnormal. Throughout the meeting, I was having contractions and back pain. I got up a few times to walk around and decided to time a couple of the contractions to pass the time. They were consistently 9-10 minutes apart, but not extremely painful. Towards the end of the meeting I started to feel nauseous and thought it was because I was hungry. After the meeting, I called my mom and told her I wasn't feeling too well, so I was going to go home to lay in the bath and would call her if I needed her to come over. I also called the doctor to check in about my contractions. The nurse said to take a bath, lay down for an hour and see if they went away or got better.
When I got home around 4pm, I ate an apple, drank some water and laid in the bath for about 20 minutes. My back started to feel better, but I kept feeling nauseous. I got out of the bath so I could go eat a bigger snack. Shortly after getting out of the bath, I started throwing up uncontrollably. I called my parents to come over to stay with me in case I needed to go to the hospital. (Eric works at the hospital, so that's why he wasn't coming home. If we needed to go to the hospital, there was no need for him to come all the way home.) I decided to call the doctor back at 5pm to tell them that I had been throwing up. My contractions were still about 10 minutes apart. After talking with the doctor, the nurse told me that they wanted me to head to the hospital to get monitored and make sure I wasn't dehydrated. Since I have had issues with the umbilical cord, the doctors have been a little more cautious. When we left for the hospital, I was sure that I would get fluids, be monitored for a couple hours and be sent home. I called Eric and told him to finish up his paperwork, get some dinner and meet me at the hospital.
Fast forward...we got checked into the hospital and hooked up to the monitors. After a little while, the doctor came in and said things looked good and I was most likely going home after they monitored for a while longer. I was scheduled to be induced the following Monday, but since I wasn't 39 weeks, the doctor couldn't induce me because there wasn't a medical need. Eric got to the hospital around 7 and we started to call some people to tell them what was going on. After that, everything kind of started to blend together and the hours passed. We hung out in the hospital room, convinced that I was going home and this was just a false alarm. At some point between 8-9, the doctor and nurse came running in the room, saying that Madison heart rate was dropping and rising, showing that she was in distress. The doctor said he was going to induce me to see how Madison tolerated labor, but I needed to wrap my head around a possible c-section. Since Madison's heart rate was inconsistent, there was now a medical reason I could be induced. As we were waiting for the induction to begin, her heart rate continued to not be as stable as they wanted it to be. The doctor said there was one person in labor before me and then we were going to move towards a c-section. I was surprisingly calm about the thought of having a c-section, knowing that keeping Madison safe was the most important thing. They nurse gave Eric his gear to wear in the operating room and started my IV.
By this time, it was after 9pm and Eric was excited that he was going to become a daddy on Hump Day. ;) My parents, grandparents, Eric's parents, Michael and Katie were all at the hospital by this point. I couldn't believe what was happening and that we were going to meet our baby girl! The doctor came in a few times to check on us and keep us updated on when we would go back to surgery since the hospital was extremely busy that night. As time passed ( I think around midnight), Madison's heart rate started to improve, which we were so thankful for. The doctor decided to go back to trying to induce me and see how Madison handled it. He kept having to wait for people to deliver, just in case the induction went bad and we had to go straight to a c-section. By this time, it was 4am. We hadn't slept, I hadn't eaten since lunch and we were ready to get things going.
Day 2 of Madison's labor to be continued...
