During the last week of my pregnancy, I had two goals…not to have the baby until at least Monday, June 30 since my doctor was out of town the entire week before and to make it to work for even 5 minutes on June 30, as we accrue our leave on the last day of each month. The good news is, my doctor came back on call at 7 am the day I went into labor…the bad news is I didn’t make it by the bank, so I missed out on an additional 18 hours of paid time off for maternity leave.
I got up for about the fifth time Sunday night at 4:30 am to go the bathroom and as I got out of bed I noticed I felt a bit more wet down there than usual…I honestly figured I had wet myself a little (the joys of late third trimester pregnancy)…when I sat down on the potty, I had a small gush of fluid that I was pretty sure I had not initiated. I woke Jody up by telling him I “thought” my water had broken, but I wasn’t 100% sure, because I wasn’t, and it just all seemed so surreal. I was also not having contractions. I called L&D and they told me to come in and they’d check me out…so I gathered up the rest of my stuff and got dressed. I was walking through the living room when I got my first contraction, which made it abundantly clear that my water had broken, as I had about three HUGE gushes right there. I am so glad it didn’t happen at work, because there would have been no disguising it. I guess Jody was expecting me to flood his truck, because he had about 10 towels in the seat for me to sit on. I can’t say I was thrilled with his choice to take the truck because I was starting to have more regular contractions by this point and getting into his truck was no easy feat, but I wasn't exactly in the best shape to argue.
We got to L&D about 5:30 and the nurse had me change and said we’d get the monitors hooked up, go over some questions, and make sure I was really in labor…I sent Jody to get me some water (that I couldn’t drink) because he was just a bundle of nerves and I couldn’t handle it at that moment. The nurse did the test strip to check for amniotic fluid and it came back negative…I KNEW my water had broken. However, the L&D nurses said they see so few women that actually have their water break, I guess they wanted to make sure. Then she did an internal and decided she needed a second opinion, so she got her charge nurse for a second opinion. Second opinions seemed to be the theme of the day, by the way. Apparently, I have a bit of an unusual cervix and the outer part of my cervix was more dilated than the inner, but they decided I was dilated to a 2.5 around 6:45 am. They also took an internal sample to put on the test strip and it still didn’t 100% confirm that amniotic fluid was present. At that point, they decided to call the doctor on call as my ob/gyn wasn’t officially back on call until 7 am and it was about 6:45 by this point…the on call doc ok’d a definitive test where they swab you for a minute, then put the swab in a solution, and then they have results in about 10 minutes…and it came back that my water had broken. They put my iv in and started the fluids and pitocin and we did even more paperwork.
Dr. Tadvick came by about 9 and my weird cervix was now dilated to a 2.5 and 3…I’m not sure what he did, but it hurt like hell and then he said, now you’re a 3 all the way around. And then the contractions picked up. He went ahead and let me have my epidural (thank goodness for that) and then I had some company, which was nice…the nurse checked me again about 11:30 and I was a 5 and then she checked me again about an hour later and just looked shocked because I was already a 10…Dr. T came by and told her to start me pushing in about 1:00. At this point, I realized I was really going to have a baby…it seems like it should have been abundantly clear to me before this, but it became very real when they said I would start pushing shortly. I pushed with the nurse for about an hour and a half before she (and her second opinion) decided the baby was facing the ceiling and wasn’t turning…so they called Dr. T to come by to try to turn her. He got her turned, said for them to have me push some more and he’d be back shortly…by this time I had pushed for over two hours and was just about worn out as was my epidural – I was starting to feel things on the left side, namely my left hip…the nurses and my doctor had a pow wow by the door and then all of a sudden, there were nursery nurses and three L&D nurses in there and he was explaining to me how the forceps delivery would work…by this point, I just wanted to be done, holding my baby. He had told me I had to listen to him very carefully with the forceps delivery and as soon as he said to stop pushing, I had to stop pushing…the next part is a bit of a blur, but he delivered her head, but her shoulders were stuck and I had three nurses jump on top of me, holding my legs, pushing my belly, and telling me to push as hard as I could…
I got up for about the fifth time Sunday night at 4:30 am to go the bathroom and as I got out of bed I noticed I felt a bit more wet down there than usual…I honestly figured I had wet myself a little (the joys of late third trimester pregnancy)…when I sat down on the potty, I had a small gush of fluid that I was pretty sure I had not initiated. I woke Jody up by telling him I “thought” my water had broken, but I wasn’t 100% sure, because I wasn’t, and it just all seemed so surreal. I was also not having contractions. I called L&D and they told me to come in and they’d check me out…so I gathered up the rest of my stuff and got dressed. I was walking through the living room when I got my first contraction, which made it abundantly clear that my water had broken, as I had about three HUGE gushes right there. I am so glad it didn’t happen at work, because there would have been no disguising it. I guess Jody was expecting me to flood his truck, because he had about 10 towels in the seat for me to sit on. I can’t say I was thrilled with his choice to take the truck because I was starting to have more regular contractions by this point and getting into his truck was no easy feat, but I wasn't exactly in the best shape to argue.
We got to L&D about 5:30 and the nurse had me change and said we’d get the monitors hooked up, go over some questions, and make sure I was really in labor…I sent Jody to get me some water (that I couldn’t drink) because he was just a bundle of nerves and I couldn’t handle it at that moment. The nurse did the test strip to check for amniotic fluid and it came back negative…I KNEW my water had broken. However, the L&D nurses said they see so few women that actually have their water break, I guess they wanted to make sure. Then she did an internal and decided she needed a second opinion, so she got her charge nurse for a second opinion. Second opinions seemed to be the theme of the day, by the way. Apparently, I have a bit of an unusual cervix and the outer part of my cervix was more dilated than the inner, but they decided I was dilated to a 2.5 around 6:45 am. They also took an internal sample to put on the test strip and it still didn’t 100% confirm that amniotic fluid was present. At that point, they decided to call the doctor on call as my ob/gyn wasn’t officially back on call until 7 am and it was about 6:45 by this point…the on call doc ok’d a definitive test where they swab you for a minute, then put the swab in a solution, and then they have results in about 10 minutes…and it came back that my water had broken. They put my iv in and started the fluids and pitocin and we did even more paperwork.
Dr. Tadvick came by about 9 and my weird cervix was now dilated to a 2.5 and 3…I’m not sure what he did, but it hurt like hell and then he said, now you’re a 3 all the way around. And then the contractions picked up. He went ahead and let me have my epidural (thank goodness for that) and then I had some company, which was nice…the nurse checked me again about 11:30 and I was a 5 and then she checked me again about an hour later and just looked shocked because I was already a 10…Dr. T came by and told her to start me pushing in about 1:00. At this point, I realized I was really going to have a baby…it seems like it should have been abundantly clear to me before this, but it became very real when they said I would start pushing shortly. I pushed with the nurse for about an hour and a half before she (and her second opinion) decided the baby was facing the ceiling and wasn’t turning…so they called Dr. T to come by to try to turn her. He got her turned, said for them to have me push some more and he’d be back shortly…by this time I had pushed for over two hours and was just about worn out as was my epidural – I was starting to feel things on the left side, namely my left hip…the nurses and my doctor had a pow wow by the door and then all of a sudden, there were nursery nurses and three L&D nurses in there and he was explaining to me how the forceps delivery would work…by this point, I just wanted to be done, holding my baby. He had told me I had to listen to him very carefully with the forceps delivery and as soon as he said to stop pushing, I had to stop pushing…the next part is a bit of a blur, but he delivered her head, but her shoulders were stuck and I had three nurses jump on top of me, holding my legs, pushing my belly, and telling me to push as hard as I could…
Riley Paige was born at 3:22 pm on Monday, June 30, 2008, weighing 9 lbs 4 oz and measuring 21.75".
Since she was had been stuck for so long, was a forceps delivery, and her shoulders got stuck, Jody wasn't even given the option to cut her cord, the got to work on her immediately and Dr. Tadvick got to work on me...I had third degree tears, so it took a bit to get me stitched up good, but Jody got to hold Riley the whole time, so I got to look at her. Unfortunately, I didn't get to hold her for a bit becuase I was shaking so hard, which is apparently a side effect of the epidural. After holding Riley for a while, the nurses needed to take her back to the nursery for newborn stuff and I needed some food.
My L&D nurse Nancy was just the best. She knew I was starving and brought me this huge sandwich tray. It was like the best thing I've had in ages. Seriously. Then Nancy brought Riley back to me and we had our first breastfeeding session/lesson. I really owe that woman a big thank you. Her husband works at the bank, so I may try to arrange for him to be given a thank you card for her with a picture of Riley.
The rest of the evening was busy, I think I was going on adrenaline. We had lots of visitors that afternoon and evening.
And here's another birthday picture of Riley, after being cleaned up a bit:
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