In the hopes of everyone being able to be here for the birth of Bentley, we talked with the doctor and scheduled to induce on Monday, April 25th. When we were at the appointment I joked with the doctor that all he had to do was schedule the induction and he would come on his own. Well, I didn't know how right I would be.
Nick's parents arrived on Saturday afternoon and we decided to go out to dinner. While we were eating I started to have some weird back pain, but I didn't think too much of it. It continued off and on throughout the evening but I slept fine, until about 3:30 am when I woke up and could not go back to sleep. I was getting very nervous about the induction. I had envisioned my water breaking and our rush to the hospital for the past nine months, and now knowing that it was going to be a scheduled procedure made me a little scared.
Trying to put all of those thoughts behind me, we went to church as usual. It was Easter after all. During the service I became pretty uncomfortable. Every time he moved it hurt, so I had to stand in the lobby for the last 15 minutes. When we got home I started to have some mild contractions but I was sure they were braxton hicks. Nick went for one of his long runs before his parents came over for dinner, so I decided to rest for awhile. At 1:45 I had only been lying down for about 5 minutes when I felt a pop in my stomach and then a gush. Luckily I ran to the bathroom in time so I didn't make a mess on the couch. :) Well this time it most certainly not a false alarm. I called Nick right away and of course he didn't answer so I called my mom, though I don't know what I thought she could do from Yakima. :) She was surprisingly calm, which was odd since the last few times I had called her she was almost giddy thinking that "this" was "the" phone call. I guess it was good because she calmed me down enough to wait for Nick to call back. He did just a few minutes later but told me that he was about 4 miles away but would run back as fast as he could. As he started back he was hoping that a police officer would pass him since for some reason one always did when he was on that particular run. It just so happened that one did pass but they didn't see him trying to flag them down so he decided to call dispatch to see if they could get him to turn around. When I heard this story I laughed. I always thought that it would be me who made the panicked call to dispatch, not Nick. Anyway, the officer turned around, picked him up, and ran code all the way to our house. While Nick was showering and packing his bags (even though I had been telling him to do it for a week) I started to count my contractions thinking that we probably had plenty of time to slowly make our way to the hospital. Boy was I wrong! They went from 5 minutes to 3 minutes in 5 contractions. By the time we got to the hospital an hour after my water broke they were a minute apart and stayed that way until he was born.
This is getting ready for the trip to the hospital. I had to stop for a few contractions first.
I always knew that I wanted an epidural but things didn't go as fast as I thought they would. I assumed that they would have it waiting for me at the door. :) Silly me! First I had to get hooked up to all of the monitors, then have my blood drawn, then an IV put in, then I had to intake an entire bag of fluid, then we had to wait for the blood results to come back from the lab, then we had to wait for the anesthesiologist to show up and THEN I got the drugs. This process took about an hour, during which my husband and my in-laws watched me get in just about every position possible to help ease the pain. I eventually ended up on all fours in the middle of the floor. Had I not been in such intense pain I know I would have thought twice about putting my hands on the floor of a hospital room. So, at the beginning of the hour the nurse checked my progress and said that I was still only 2 cm dialated. At the end of the hour (without the epidural mind you) the nurse checked me again. She had a very startled look on her face which in the midst of labor is not a comforting sight. She asked me if she could get a second opinion. Another nurse came in to check me and happily stated that I was 9 cm! 9 CM!! They called me a freak of nature and said that was the closest thing to natural childbirth that I could have experienced minus the "ring of fire" part. The nurse also told me later that with the next child I need to come in at the very first contraction or I could be giving birth in the car. :)
Before the epidural...
...after the epidural
After I got to 9 cm things started to slow down a bit and it took me about another couple hours to be fully dialated and ready to push. Luckily that gave everyone a chance to get to the hospital. I pushed for an hour and then the nurse had me rest for half an hour and then she came in to ask if it was alright if I waited awhile longer. Apparently another woman had come in who needed a c-section. They said that she was less stable than I was so I graciously let her go first. :) They said that they would be monitoring both Bentley and I so I wasn't too worried and we were having a big party in the delivery room anyway. By the time the came back in two and a half hours had passed so we were pushing midnight at that point. We all were taking bets on how big he would be and when he would come, though I don't think any of us were even close on the time.
Bentley missed being an Easter baby by 27 minutes, but I'm just glad he decided to come on his own time. Who knows what my body would have done on pitocin! I hope I never have to find out. There were many funny things that happened during delivery too, but I'll save that for my next post since this one is getting a little long.
