Sunday, May 3, 2015

My Birth Story--Labor Begins

This is one of the last pictures of my pregnant belly as I headed in to work on my due date, Thursday, April 23, 2015.


I want to write this down so that I don't forget the details. Every birth story is beautiful and wonderful in it's own right--so here is mine! 

After going to the doctor Wednesday for our 40 week check up, I really began to feel like things were going to get moving soon. On Thursday, Lennon and I took a really long, vigorous walk as suggested by the doctor. Nothing seemed all that unusual until I woke up at my usual "witching hour" in the night around 3am or so. I hadn't really felt any contractions up to this point--in fact I was worried I wouldn't really know what they felt like because I'd had no Braxton-Hicks that I could tell. But when I was awake in the night I knew that I was beginning to feel something different--pain, mostly in my back, that would come and go with some regularity. I didn't think too much of it and tried to just go back to sleep. 

On Friday morning I woke up and ate my regular round of donuts :) and watched Scandal from the night before. Nothing seemed too crazy but I just REALLY didn't feel well. There hasn't been a day in my pregnancy that I felt as bad as a did on Friday. I knew something was beginning to happen. 

I tried to take it easy throughout the day. I rested on the couch with Matt and Lennon. The contractions were coming off and on but nothing very regular or all that concerning. Matt did some grocery shopping and once he came back home I decided I needed to get out of the house. So I took a bath and got dressed and ready so that we could head out to the Outlets to do some shopping and walking around. I did pretty good at the Outlets (and one woman even told me I was "such a cute pregnant woman!" Little did she know how much I needed to hear that today!)--we made it a few hours before I just looked at Matt and said I need to be closer to home. And then I changed my mind, I needed to be home. 

By the time we got home it was late afternoon and I was really beginning to feel some strong contractions--mostly in my back. I rested while Matt fixed us breakfast for dinner. I ate a good meal knowing it might be my last for a while. At about 7:00pm we decided to try to head to the bed and get some rest while we could--at this point I knew that labor was imminent. We gave mom and dad the go ahead to get on the road first thing in the morning because this baby was coming! 

Once in the bed I couldn't get comfortable at all. The contractions grew much stronger and I was still feeling all of it in my back. I decided to get in the bath to try to ease some of the discomfort. The warm water felt good for a little while but eventually the contractions returned and they felt worse than before. Once I got back to the bedroom Matt tried to help ease the pain by applying pressure and rubbing my back but nothing helped. As a few of the contractions moved to the front I really began to feel nauseated and worn out. They were coming closer and closer together and we began to panic that we might be further along than we thought. 

After another hour or so we finally bit the dust and called the doctor. Thankfully, Dr. Thomas, was on call for the weekend--she was one of our favorite doctors we met with when we rounded the practice. She told us to go ahead and come to the hospital as that was really the only way to determine if labor was actually underway or not. 

So we finished packing our bags and put everything in the car to head to the hospital. It was a miserable 10 minute ride for me. The back labor was SO strong and SO painful. But we made it to the hospital and they put us in a triage room to check things out....

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