It all started Monday morning, October 7th. I woke up with contractions every 4 minutes at 3am. I told Isaac we needed to go to the hospital, so we got everything ready to go. By the time we were ready to head out, the contractions got further and further apart. We decided not to go in, and I went to work as normal, and my contractions continued all day about 10 minutes apart.
At 4pm that day, I thought my water broke, so I told Isaac to come pick me up and take me to Wesley.
Once we were admitted, we found out my water was not broken, but I was contracting every 5 minutes. I was also dilated to 2cm. Because of this, my doctor decided to keep us overnight and see if I changed in the morning. Because I was only 38weeks and 5 days, they couldn't induce me because of hospital policy. That night was very long, and I didn't sleep at all because of the contractions and emotions.
I was re-checked Tuesday morning, and still stuck at 2cm. I was so frustrated and hungry from not being allowed to eat for 15 hours. Dr. Christman said we could stay in the hospital or go home, and we chose the latter. He wrote me a RX for sleeping pills so I went home and just passed out while continuing to contract every 8 minutes or so. That day was so painful, I just layed on the couch just dreading the next contraction. Isaac stayed home to take care of me and was such a sweetheart.
On Wednesday, we decided that it was time to get this baby out, so we took a short walk outside. I was still contracting every 10 minutes or so. That afternoon around 5pm, the contractions got unbearable, like falling to my knees, screaming, unbearable. We got to Wesley and were taken back to the pre-admission room. I was 4 cm dilated, 100% effaced. In order to be admitted into "active labor" I would have to have a 1cm change over the course of an hour...of course, my body would not move that fast.
I was stuck at 4 cm for about 4 hours at Wesley, the most painful hours of my life. If I would have been admitted, I would have most definitely already had an epidural for the pain.
The resident was about to give me morphine and ambien to knock me out, when I said "I think my water just broke." Thank God, it did, and I was quickly admitted into Labor & Delivery. I actually heard AND felt when my water broke, and it was such a relief.
After my water broke, the contractions went to another level, just when I thought they couldn't get any worse. It felt like a dream when the nurse was wheeling me to LDR, because I was just so exhausted from the waiting game and the pain. When my water broke, the nurse also said that there was meconium in the fluid, meaning the NICU team had to be present at Luke's birth.
Once I got into my LDR room around 1am on Thursday morning, I immediately requested an epidural. It was quickly administered, but the anesthesiologist had a bit of trouble getting it to kick in. I continued to contract for another hour and a half until the epidural finally started to work. By this time, I was beyond exhausted, and just ready for it all to be over.
The time between 1am Thursday and Luke's birth was a roller coaster. In addition to the meconium, Luke's heart rate kept dropping throughout the day, even to 40BPM at times which caused quite the commotion. He was also sunny side up, but Dr. Christman was eventually able to turn him once he was far down enough in the birth canal. Thank goodness we had the support of our families there to keep us company and feed me ice. :)
At noon, Dr. Christman was ready to take me in for a C-Section because of the heart rate problems. He decided to put it off, as I was continuing to dilate. They put a scalp monitor on Luke's head to monitor his heart rate more closely, and also an internal contraction monitor.
At 3:30pm, it was go time. It turns out the contraction monitor wasn't working, so we had to do it "old school" as Dr. said. The nurse had her hand on my belly we pushed every time she felt a contraction. Pushing was so incredibly easy, and I got Luke out in about 20 minutes without any intervention or tearing, which has made recovery a breeze. I think I had the strongest epidural ever administered too, which was nice!
Luke was born right after I saw Dr. Christman pick up a pair of scissors to perform an episiotomy. Talk about motivation, I was NOT going to let that happen!
I don't know quite how to describe the moment Luke was born. I remember Dr. holding up a beautiful baby boys with lots of hair, who was just gray and not moving or crying. Luke was whisked away to the NICU table and Isaac followed. It was about 5 minutes until he started whimpering. I was in shock, not even able to cry, and I just kept asking everyone what was going on. I could tell it was serious because Isaac was just standing over the NICU table crying with the most terrified look on his face.
I started crying the moment Luke was finally placed on my chest. We had an hour of alone skin-on-skin time so we could be properly introduced. I was immediately in love.
After our hour of alone time, Luke was bathed, weighed, and measured. He had the most beautiful head of hair that the nurse styled into a comb-over. He weighed 7lb 2oz and was 20.5" long. He was the most handsome baby I had ever seen.
The rest of the evening was pretty much a blur as I was still in shock from the entire process. Our families met Luke, and helped us move into our recovery room. We had to go to another section of the hospital for recovery since the LDR ward was so busy. The ride to recovery was a blur, I just held and stared at Luke the entire time and had no idea what was going on around me. It was definitely a state of emotion I had never been in. Once there, we visited with family for a bit. I was so exhausted and honestly just ready to shower and get to sleep. Our nurse, Amy was so helpful the night of his birth, and helped me shower, etc.
So that's how Mr. Luke was brought earth-side. It was was an exhausting process, but I would do it all over again just for that moment when I held him in my arms the first time.
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