One year ago today, I woke up around 5:30am to roll over....however when I did so, I felt something. It wasn't a big gush, but did feel wet. I laid there for a minute or so and decided to roll back over and see if I felt the same thing, and I did....I knew then that my water had broke! Hallelujah! I knew that they couldn't turn me away from L&D with my water broken. I shook Hans awake and told him we needed to get to the hospital. He asked if we had time for him to shower, and so while he showered, I gathered the few things that we needed to add to the hospital bag and started to call our family and friends that we would be calling to inform we were on our way to the hospital. Once he was done, we headed out the door. He told me that he wanted to stop at McDonald's to get some breakfast and boy oh boy am I glad that he suggested that as once I got to the hospital the only thing they let me eat was a Popsicle and ice chips.
We got to the hospital around 7 or 7:30 (can't remember the exact time) and got all checked in. The nurses kept apologizing to us because they were full and they had to put us in the smallest room. It doubled as the storage room for extra monitoring machines! They kept telling us that as soon as another room was vacated and cleaned they would move us. I was not even close to delivering, so was not worried at all. Around 10 they were able to move us to a much bigger nicer room. By this point, I was still not dilating and my contractions were maybe 10 minutes apart and I still couldn't feel them. The doctor on call wanted me started on pitocin. I had wanted to stay away from pitocin unless I had to have it, but also wanted to keep from having a C-Section more. I asked if I could try walking around for a bit to see if that would help, so they let me go. I used the time to go over to the mother and baby unit to visit with my co-worker who had delivered her son the day before!
Once I got back to my room, my contractions were the same, and I agreed to the pitocin. They first started me on it and it would make my contractions get into a more regular pattern, but then would make them stack on top of each other, so they would have to stop it and wait for awhile and then try again. At one point, they had stopped it for a few hours. Then one of the nurse said that maybe what we needed to do was double the amount that they were giving me and see if that worked better. They hadn't been giving me all that much before, so we figured that it would hurt. While this was going on Hans and his mom had left to go have some dinner. They were nice and didn't bring it back to the room where I would have to smell it as I was VERY hungry by this point. By the point that Hans made it back to my room (around 8ish), the pitocin had started to make my contractions painful and to the point that I had to stop and think about breathing through them. He was so great, he just pulled up a chair and sat next to me helping me breath and telling me when they were almost over and making sure that I was comfortable. This continued on, and continued to get worse. Around 10:30pm the nurse checked me and I had finally made it to 6cm!
At 11pm, I turned to Hans and told him to turn on the TV, I wanted to watch Jay Leno! I listened to his jokes and then when they were done, I wanted the room back to being dark and quiet! Hans continued to talk me through my contractions and helping me to breath. Around midnight I finally asked the nurse if I would have something in my IV to knock the edge off. I don't remember what they gave me, I just remember looking at the nurse as she pushed the drug into my IV and saying to her....this is just going to take the edge off right? And she looked at me and said oh no hunny, this is just going to relax you! That is NOT what I wanted to hear! Yes it did allow me to fall asleep between contractions for the 20 or 30 seconds, but it didn't take that edge off that I was looking for.
After another 1/2 hour or hour I finally turned to Hans and told him that I couldn't do it any more, I needed drugs. I can't remember if he or Diane (my mother in law) went to get the nurse, but one of them did. She came in and just verified that I was asking for the EPI. I told her yes and they paged the anesthesiologist. They came in and needless to say it was a mess. It took 6 attempts to get it placed, and it still didn't work. After the first 3 tries, she thought that she had it. They ran the tube up my back, and had me positioned and she was about to give me more meds in it when she realized that the line was full of blood and she didn't have it placed correctly. They had to remove this and, she had to go restock her cart! At this point, Hans had to leave the room because he could tell that the anesthesiologist was getting frustrated. He left and Diane and one of the nurse took over allowing me to lean on them while it was being placed. Another 3 tries and she said that she got it. My legs went numb, and the left side of my belly went numb, but that it all. I still felt every.single.contraction! Like the meds that they had given me before, the EPI allowed me to fall asleep between contractions and I think that this is what allowed me to finally finish dilating. I really didn't want to have a C-section. Finally around 2:30ish I turned to Hans and said I have to push!
We paged the nurse and she came and checked me and sure enough I was fully dilated! They paged the doctor. He was at home, so we had to wait for him to get down to the hospital. Once he got there, they had me start pushing and at 3:16 am Jacob Christopher made his debut into this world! It was the most amazing moment of my life! The nurses were so nice, they have saved me a dinner tray since they new that I was starving, so as soon as the doctor was done, they brought me food! Then after all the cleaning up happening, we moved on over to the mother baby unit. After we were settled, Hans headed home to get some much needed rest. Jacob and I snuggled right on in and slept until breakfast came! I scarfed it down as I was still starving! Later that morning, family and friends started to come by and meet Jacob.
In just a few short hours, my baby will be 1! We are having his birthday party from 11am to 1pm and I am really excited for it! I just can't believe how fast the past year had flown by. I have heard many times that you never know how fast time goes by until you have a baby and boy is that true.
This was our first family photo!
And this is our most recent family picture! What a difference a year makes!
