I felt good about the plan. We had friends to watch Little A in the morning, and then Nana would pick her up and stay with her while we were in the hospital. Little A, E and I had a low key Thanksgiving at home. We made dinner together, went for a long walk around the lake and did a little cleaning and organizing for baby. We definitely had a lot to be thankful for this year. One sweet little girl here, and another to come the next day! I went to bed feeling like I was as ready as I was going to get for baby's arrival (although we still hadn't decided on a name).
Then came 3am, and I woke up having a contraction. At first I thought it was just a fluke, but when they continued, I figured I was probably in labor. The contractions were 9-10 minutes apart though, so I tried to relax and get a little more rest. My contractions moved pretty quickly to being only 4-5 minutes apart, so I got out of bed and moved to the couch, hoping E could sleep a little more, and I would be more comfortable. I was thinking that I would be able to stay at home, and just go in when I was scheduled. But the contractions picked up, so I got in the shower. (Side note: I had downloaded a free contraction timer app a few weeks earlier, and it was really helpful to keep track of how far apart my contractions were. However, after 10 contractions, the app wouldn't work any more. I was very frustrated when trying to find my credit card to buy the full app while having contractions. Not cool app creators, not cool.) When I got out I called the hospital, and the doctor said to go ahead and come in.
E called his friend who was going to watch Little A (who only lives a few blocks away), and had him come over so she could keep sleeping for a bit. We packed up a few last minute things, and when M got here, we headed to the hospital. When we got there, I think there was a little confusion. Several times people who came in to my room made comments like, "Oh, it looks like you're already in labor." Apparently it wasn't communicated very well that I did not need to be induced.
After what seemed like a really long time to me, probably an hour or so, the nurse finally checked to see where I was at, and told me I was already at 6-7. I let her know that I was going to want an epidural, so she started me on fluids. I think this was right around 7am, because after that new nurses came in. After getting some fluids, my new nurses called for the epidural, but it took 3 tries before the anesthesiologist responded. He finally came to my room, and got the epidural started around 8:30am. The nurses left for a little while then to give me some time to relax. One nurse told me she thought I was probably ready to go, but to take some time to relax. I tried to relax, and it was nice to have a little quiet time, but right around 9am my water broke. Such a strange feeling! I had E try to find someone after that because I was really feeling like it was time to push. My doctor and nurses came back, and at about 9:10am I started pushing, and at 9:29am baby girl made her entrance into the world!
My doctor and nurses got everything cleaned up, and gave us some time with baby girl. We got out our name lists, and quickly decided on a name for our new little girl. Later, one of the nurses came back to measure her, and we found out how big Baby J was. E and I were very surprised to hear she was bigger than Little A. Baby J seemed so small! (And when Nana brought Little A to visit later, we were surprised again by how big our first baby suddenly seemed!)
Overall, things went about as well as I could have imagined. It was nice that we already had plans in place for Friday, but I was so thankful that I went into labor naturally. And I was relieved that everything went so quickly after a much longer labor with Little A.
:) HOORAY! Welcome Baby J!
ReplyDelete