9:30 am - OB appointment. No change from last week...fully effaced and 1cm dilated. The nurse practitioner said "probably see you next week," as she left the exam room.
10:45am - Walking to the car on my way to stress test, I felt some leaking down below. Could it be my water broke?
11:00am - Arrive for stress test, and really believe my water has broken. Steve called me while I was sitting in the waiting room there, and I told him my thoughts. I said I would get examined by the nurses and call him back. The nurse came to get me and I told her my suspicions...she got excited. "We love when that happens!" she said. She gave me a strip of paper to swab, and told me it would change to a certain color if it was amniotic fluid. Well, the pale yellow paper turned a very bright blue, and there we had it! They decided to hook me up to the monitor to see how the baby was doing. At this point I called Steve, who was already packing up and getting in a cab to meet me...he just knew from my voice that this was it.
11:15am - Feel first contraction while hooked up to the fetal monitors. Another followed 7 minutes later. Then another about 7 minutes after that. "Okay, this isn't so bad, I can handle this so far," I thought. Steve and I were just smiling at each other in excited anticipation of the rest of the day. Nurses called my OB, who said to go home and labor as long as possible.
12:30pm - Arrive home. I try to make some final work calls and emails, Steve runs around finishing packing the bags. I start monitoring contractions and realize they are accelerating in frequency and pain at a shocking pace. By 1:00pm they are only 2-3 minutes apart and lasting a minute or more. I can no longer sit still and start to have trouble talking through contractions. Get slightly nauseous with each one. Steve calls the hospital and they say to come in.
1:45pm - Arrive at the hospital and I am in tears. I can barely walk. I just pray they don't send us back home. They get me into a triage room and examine me and I'm only 1cm dilated, same as this morning! I can't believe it! Impossible with this pain! They see how fast my contractions are coming and decide to admit me. They poke about 3 different veins before they can get an IV in me. Fun.
2:45pm - Moved to our Labor and Delivery room (#231) where we'll await Minor's arrival! Intense, intense pain as we wait for me to dilate more before getting an epidural. They give me Fentanyl, which does NOTHING for the contractions but does help me relax a bit more during the little time between. I am basically in a pain-induced trance at this point, not hearing anything that Steve is saying. He is doing his best to coach me through the pain, but I have gone to another place.
4:15pm - Nurses still worried that it's too early to administer epidural, but they see I can't take much more of the pain. Epidural goes in and about 5 minutes later I am almost back to myself. It is truly amazing the difference it makes. I could open my eyes and speak again. I could move my feet, but had no sensation of pain at all.
4:30pm - Internal exam, crossing our fingers that I've progressed. The nurse laughs a bit, and says "let me check this again". We are horribly afraid she'll say I'm still at 1cm...but no, I'm at 9cm and almost ready to push! I catch a 45 minute nap while they prepare the room. Steve practices his coaching moves:
5:40pm - Start pushing! Contractions slow to every 3 minutes then every 5 minutes or so. I didn't realize how slow the pushing phase can be.
7:15pm - Minor is fully descended, and Dr. Massa arrives.
7:30pm - Head crowns.
7:34pm - Mya Elizabeth Carter is born! She needs a minute or two of stimulation, and then we finally hear her strong cry and she turns pink. Steve and I share tears of happiness and stare at each other and at Mya in amazement. Mya is 5lbs, 11oz and 18.5 inches long.
The following hours are now a bit of a blur. Mya got some immunizations right away and an erythromycin treatment in her eyes. She got a bath and Steve was able to hold her. The nurses finally let us have about 15 minutes alone with her around 9pm, when I got to hold her for the first time and we fully decided on her name. A bit later they moved us to our recovery room (#460), where we stayed until we were discharged on Friday.
We got little sleep in the hospital, between trying to feed Mya every 2-3 hours and all the other "visitors" to our room (nurses, doctors, lactation consultants, meal deliveries, birth certificate lady, etc). But all that help at the touch of a button was reassuring, and we were (ok, I was) terribly nervous about leaving. I cried the whole way home from the hospital. But once inside with Mya, everything just felt right, and we were excited for the adventure to begin!!!
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