On Tuesday, July 12th, I had my 38 week check-up. It went pretty standard...they hooked me up for my weekly NST right away. Baby was sleeping, and not cooperating much with it, but they finally got him to do a few movements. I was registering a few contractions throughout the NST, which I have in the last few, but I still wasn't actually feeling them. So, I didn't think much of it. My blood pressure came in pretty normal, but my weight shot back up this week. Not sure if it's water retention, or where that might be coming from. I was slightly swollen, but not too bad considering it's pretty warm out, and I am (almost) 38 weeks pregnant. She checked me, and I was dilated to about 1.5, she said maybe a 2 if she really worked for it, soft but not too thinned out yet, and my cervix was still a bit high, but she said with each subsequent pregnancy, that doesn't mean much.
She sent me off to my biophysical scan and asked that I come back afterwards to discuss our plan going forward. I grabbed my mom from the waiting room, and we were off to my scan. She's been coming with me lately because of all of the ups and downs I've been going through, so I won't be alone if anything comes up. Everything was looking pretty good again - baby is still head down and ready to go (and, we briefly caught him looking at the camera, long enough to grab a picture). Everything checked out well, even my fluid levels were WAY up again, except he was still sleeping, so it took a while to get him to do his practice breathing again. He did eventually cooperate, so we were on our way, back to chat with the doctor.
My doctor was pretty adamant that she wanted me to deliver this week. With my blood pressure and fluid levels going up and down so drastically, the VBAC, and now my weight fluctuating so much, the OB's didn't want me going past 39 weeks. She called over to the hospital to see what openings they had this week for an induction, and wanted me to go tomorrow! I wasn't quite ready for that, and really wanted to deliver on Friday (if I had the choice) to make it easier for Christian, so we agreed on Friday at 10:00AM for an induction. Because of my previous c-section, not all induction methods are available to me, but she was willing to try some pitocen, starting at a low dose, and a Foley Bulb. I did have both of those during my labor with Eliza, to help move things along, so I was comfortable with that plan. I signed the paperwork, and we were off. I couldn't believe we actually had a date!
After my appointment, I made my way back to work to finish out the day, picked the girls up from daycare, stopped at Target to get the big girls some new tennis shoes (when I picked them up, I discovered they both had giant holes in their shows, UGH!) and we finally made our way home for dinner and to end the evening. Everything was pretty standard. I was feeling pretty exhausted, and a little uncomfortable...and as the night went on it felt different than the usual end of the day exhaustion. Christian left for work after dinner, and around 8:00PM I started feeling what I believed were real contractions. They were fairly random, not really painful, but pretty much exactly what I remember from when things started with Eliza. I texted Christian around 10:00PM, kind of jokingly, telling him I didn't think we'd make it to Friday. He was a little shocked, and told me to keep him posted, and he'd leave work if he had to.
At 10:30PM, I went to the bathroom (I was pee'ing like crazy all evening), and tried to lay down and get some sleep. I thought maybe my cervical check had just irritated things, and that was causing the contractions. And, my previous labors took FOREVER to get going, so if nothing else, I figured that I had a long night ahead of me. Based on my previous experiences, I had NO CLUE what I was in for...
At about 12:30AM, I texted Christian again, telling him that the contractions were not letting up at all, in fact, they were almost constant already. I had started tracking them, and by 1:00AM they were 2-3 minutes apart, lasing 60-90 seconds, and he was on his way home. I was walking, laying down, sitting, trying to do anything to get comfortable (or, at least make things bearable), but I was in so much pain. It was NOTHING like when things started up with the girls. I quickly packed up a bag while trying to control the pain as much as I could. Thankfully, the girls all slept through everything - I was crying on and off from the pain and worrying that something was wrong, and may have let out a little scream or two to let off some steam, LOL.
I got a hold of my mom and she rushed to get over and stay with the girls. As soon as Christian got home, I got in the car and waited for him to finish getting stuff together, and waited for my mom to arrive. I had the air conditioner blasting on me, I was so hot and sweaty, my legs were shaking, the pain was non-stop. I seriously did not think I was going to survive at this point, and became quite dramatic about the whole thing. At 1:30AM, we were finally on our way to the hospital. I was yelling an writhing in pain the entire way, and Christian was speeding so fast....thankfully it was the middle of the night and there was no traffic, and that we didn't encounter any cops along the way!
We arrived at the hospital just before 2:00AM. As I got out of the car, I felt a gush of water...my water has never broken before, so I wasn't sure if I had peed myself, or if it was indeed my water. As we walked through the ramp, took the elevator up, and started walking along the hallway, there were a few more gushes of water. It was so embarrassing, but I couldn't bring myself to care at that point. Christian grabbed a wheelchair and pushed me the rest of the way to Labor & Delivery. Thankfully I remembered to pre-register this time so they checked me in quickly, and got me into triage. I had to get up and weigh myself (I ended this pregnant at exactly what I weighed when I got pregnant!), and then collapsed into the bed. The nurse got me hooked up to the monitors, and she and Christian had to get my shorts off so they could check me and test my fluids to see if my water did indeed break. She claimed I was only at a 3.5, which I couldn't believe and made me want to bawl my eyes out, and the test came back positive for ruptured bag of waters. I for sure was not going anywhere, and this thing was happening. I was still in the most incredible pain, I just thought if I'm really at 3.5, something is not right. We told them I definitely needed an epidural, ASAP, so they got the anesthesiologist on queue, and Christian asked them if there was anything else I could take now. They kept saying they had to wait to verify where I was at and get me all settled in first, and I was doing everything I could not to break down.
Maybe 10 minutes after my first check, the head nurse came back to check on me. She commented that I sure sound like I was in active labor, so she wanted to check for herself and see where I was at. She checked me, and things got real, REAL quick. She said I was at an 8.5 and baby was RIGHT THERE, and we needed to get into a delivery room. They asked if I could get up and walk or take the wheelchair down, and I said there was no way I could get up, so they just took the whole bed from triage to the deliver room. As they were wheeling me into the room, I felt so much pressure and knew that something was going on. I pulled myself from the triage bed, into the delivery bed, moaning and groaning non-stop. The nurse commented that those sure sounded like "pushing" groans, and checked me again. In the few minutes it took to ride down the hallway, I made it to 10, baby's head was there, and it was time to push. There were suddenly a handful of labor and delivery nurses, a baby nurse, and a couple of OB's in the room...they were getting everything set up, and told me to start pushing as soon as I felt the need to. Which, was immediate. While I began pushing, they were putting IV's in, and informing me that there wouldn't be time for any pain medication. I couldn't even bring myself to care at that point...I honestly could barely hear anything that was being said at that point. I pushed through two contractions, and out came baby.
I was still in my "street" clothes, they didn't have time to do any vitals, ask me any questions, do any testing. No time for any pain meds. We arrived at 2:00AM, and he entered the world at 2:47AM. The entire event could not have been more different than the birth of our girls. I looked at Christian and said "whoa, we almost had a highway baby!".
So, I present to the world, our little surprise hitchhiker, Noah Samuel Duran. Born 7/13/16, at 2:47am. 7lbs 7ozs and 19.5" of love.
The rest of the night (morning) was quite a blur. Noah and I cuddled for a while, he nursed, they weighed him and did all that jazz and they finally did all of the admit stuff...tons of questions, blood draw, urine sample, all that fun stuff. They got me all cleaned up, and we made our way up to our recovery room. Noah was, of course, quite sleepy, so he slept and nursed and slept and nursed. My blood pressure stayed up in the "questionable" area, so they monitored that pretty closely.
Our hospital stay was fairly quiet. Just lots of vital taking, some eating, lots of nursing and a little sleeping. It was so surreal that this little guy was finally here. The pregnancy was a shock. It was long (but fast), and rough, and exhausting and painful. I was sick, overwhelmed, emotional, uncomfortable and hormonal. The deliver was crazy and unpredictable. I've never been in so much pain, or so proud of myself, in my entire life.
Now, we move onto the next phase of our lives. Adjusting to being a family of 6. Adjusting to having 4 kids. Adjusting to having a newborn in the house again (something I never thought we'd do again). Adjusting to raising a little boy. It's definitely going to be an adventure!
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