I went to the doctor on my due date (3/13/12) for my first ever 40 week appointment and was 3cm/60% effaced. I had him strip my membranes in hopes of getting something going. I was 3cm dilated with both boys by 38 weeks so I was pretty depressed about not progressing as quickly as I had before. Anyway, he stripped my membranes around 9:30am and I had convinced myself that my contractions would start by dinner. HA! Nothing happened. Not even any Braxton Hicks ctx to get my hopes up. I even jumped on the boys’ little trampoline! So after I got the boys to bed and hopped down the stairs, I decided to go for a walk. Figured I’d just walk until I was in labor or until I had to get the boys to daycare, whichever came first! We live on a hill and our subdivision is just a big circle, so I made two laps and was so out of breath and sweaty that I decided to just go home. It was about 9:30pm by this point. I was so upset that I wasn’t in labor already that instead of taking a shower, I just went to bed. Yep, went to bed all sweaty and stinky. STUPID!
Anyway, I fell asleep pretty quickly and woke up at 10:47 with a contraction (ctx). It wasn’t really painful, but it was uncomfortable enough for me to know that it was a real one. SO EXCITED…then nothing else. Tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t so I trolled facebook and twitter on my phone waiting for another ctx. The next one came at 11:32. The next one came at 12:08 and then 12:25, 12:40, 12:56…and so on coming every 14-17 minutes; strong enough that I had to breathe and moan through them. I finally got up at 2:12am after a ctx, went to the bathroom, and asked James if he wanted me to sleep upstairs so he could get some rest. I figured the ctx would stay around 15 minutes apart for several hours like they did with Asher and I didn’t want to have to deal with a tired irritable James!
He said he would rather we just go to the hospital since the doc warned me that I could go fairly quickly since my cervix was really soft. He’s such a worry wart! I said I wanted to try to labor at home as much as possible and take a shower and blah blah blah, but he was adamant about going to L&D. So he got up. I packed my bag (now before you think that I should have already had it packed since it was past my due date, I had everything set aside together, just not IN the bag yet) and James called his sister. I called my sister and told her that I was having ctx about 15 minutes apart and that she should start heading down to Georgia.
At that point they started getting really strong and coming every 6 minutes. By the time James’ sister got to our house and we got everything in the car (my bag, G’s bag, my pillow, my purse, iPhone, iPad, chargers, etc) it was 3:10am and the ctx were coming every 3 minutes. They were strong, but not so strong that I couldn’t just breathe through them. Didn’t matter, James said we were going, so we went.
We got to the hospital and checked-in in the ER at 3:20am. They kept us waiting there FOREVER! I could have killed someone! Someone from L&D finally came and took us upstairs around 3:50am. I got all hooked up in triage and they checked me at 4:10am. I was 4cm so they decided to keep me in triage for an hour to make sure it was real/active labor. After an hour there was no change in my cervix, but the ctx were coming every 3 minutes and were registering pretty strong on the monitor so they decided to move me to L&D.
I made it to 5cm about 30 minutes after they moved me to L&D and even though it wasn’t a lot of progress, my cervix had moved forward (?) so they no longer had to go fishing behind my bladder to find it. The doc said that was fabulous progress and I would probably dilate rather quickly once I hit 6-7cm. Welllll…because Greta is a diva she decided she didn’t want to come quickly like Asher did and my dilating stalled out at 5cm. So at 11:30 they started a small bag of pitocin and I cried. CRIED! I wanted to go epi free and I knew it would a lot harder to do that with pitocin. James was gone at this time. He ran home to do something…take a shower maybe since he didn’t have time to take one before we left for the hospital or maybe it was to get something to eat? Heck I don’t know WHY he left. I really can’t think of a good reason why a husband would leave the hospital when his wife is in active labor. Whatevs. Not like he was being a big help or anything, see...
My sister FINALLY got to the hospital and arrived at the same time James did so they walked in together. They stopped in the gift shop and got me some Lifesavers. OMG THEY WERE LIFESAVERS! I was so hungry and ice chips weren’t cutting it! I needed something with flavor! Kirsten REALLY helped me get through the ctx. She massaged my belly and back through them and helped me concentrate on my breathing. However, because of the pitocin, my ctx were coming fast and furious. Because I didn’t have an epi, I also didn’t have a catheter so I had to walk to the bathroom to go pee. The ctx were so close together that I couldn’t even get out of bed before another one came. Kirsten and James helped me to the toilet around 2:00 and another ctx came. I started screaming to get me the guy with the needle. Kirsten hit the nurse button and a nursing student came in to my room to see what I needed. I screamed from the bathroom to get me the epi NOW! But because I had been adamant all day about wanting to go epi free, he hesitated. I screamed once more and I’m pretty sure a few ugly curse words came flowing out of my mouth. I should probably find that poor boy and apologize. Hmmm? Anyway, when they came in to check me to make sure I could still get the epi, the nurse said I was 8cm and would probably have the baby if I could just make it ten more minutes. I told her it was my body and I wanted the epi and they couldn’t stop me because it was my body and I was master of the universe of my body and get me the man with the(bleep bleep bleep) drugs. My sister couldn’t stop laughing at me. Looking back, I’m sure it WAS pretty funny, but at the time I wanted to scream ugly curse words at her too! LOL
The man with the drugs came into the room and he made Kirsten and James leave the room. Not sure why. James was able to be with me through the epi’s I got with the boys, but this was a different man and whatever he said, I did because I was done with the pain! I had to hold on to the nurse instead of James and when I looked at her to let her know the ctx had stopped, I noticed she was LITERALLY crossed eyed. Seriously y’all, I can’t make this up. Her eyes were crossed, and it wasn’t because she was trying to make me laugh…that’s how her eyes were. I decided I didn’t want her putting in my cath so I requested my regular nurse to do that. Turns out though, ole cross eye was quite hilarious and very sweet. ANYWAY… I was able to still feel the ctx and ALL the pain with them on my left side after the epi ; and I remember I had the same problem with I delivered the boys. But this man…this man was a knight in shining armor because he came back and gave me more drugs! MORE DRUGS! Woooohooo! In fact, he gave me so much that my blood pressure plummeted and I started violently dry heaving. My sister called the nurse and they gave me Zofran in my IV to stop the heaving and something else to bring up my blood pressure….I think James said it was ephedrine, but I can’t remember exactly. Good stuff whatever it was. Stopped my dry heaving and allowed me to drift off to sleep for 20 minutes.
At around 3:00, I told James I felt funny and needed him to look under the sheet to see if something looked weird. His face said it all! My water had broken and the baby was crowning! Whoa! My sister buzzed the nurse, who leisurely walked in stating that it was “probably close to time to push.” She lifted up my sheet to check me, saw the top of the baby’s head and called the team stat! They got me prepped and told me not to push until the doc got in there. Then he leisurely walked in telling a story about how a woman didn’t know the baby was crowning and when he lifted up the sheet to check her progress the baby’s head was already out and yada yada yada taking his sweet time, then he lifted the sheets and said “OH THE BABY’S HEAD IS CROWNIG!” They prepped my legs in the stirrups and said to push with the next ctx. I could feel the tightening of a ctx to I grabbed my legs to try to sit up so I could push, but as I was trying to sit up…Greta’s head popped out! WHAT?!?! Crazy talk right there! They started screaming at me to stop, but I wasn’t sure what they wanted me to stop because I hadn’t even pushed yet! They then said to push one more time to deliver her body, so when I felt the tightening of the next ctx I tried to pull myself up in a sitting position and before I could get myself up, they screamed that she was out and to stop! AGAIN…I hadn’t even started pushing yet! James joked that the 4th baby would just slide right out on its own. I said I didn’t know who was having a 4th baby, but it WASN’T THIS LADY!
Anyway, Greta Claire was born at 3:17pm on March 14, 2012. She weighed 6 pounds 15 ounces and was only 18.5 inches long. My third child was my peanut! The runt of my litter. And she was perfect. Beautiful. She had just a tiny bit of peach fuzz hair and we still haven’t figured out what color it is. She looked like a perfect mixture of her brothers, but at the time everyone said she looked “just like Asher.” She doesn’t. She resembles Asher and she resembles Preston and she resembles James and she resembles me. She’s a perfectly adorable mix of everyone in our family. They put her on my chest right when she came out and she immediately calmed down. I sang Mammaw Dee’s “Pretty Little Muffin” to her because I sang it to her all the time while she was on the inside, so I figured she’d like it. She did and I believe Kirsten got it all on video, but I have not seen said video. Hmmm…must ask her about that! Anyway, G still settles to that song. I hope she loves it as much as I do, but I know I could never do it justice like Mammaw did.
