Tuesday Dec 13, 2011
I got up to go to the bathroom at about 12:40am. On my way back to bed I felt warm liquid fill my underwear and I thought “am I still peeing??” in my half asleep state. So I got back on the toilet till it stopped. At that point I figured it was my water had broken so I checked the color (it was light pink) and smell (none). I waddled (with every move more would leak out - fun) back to bed to wake Adam. I said “I think my water just broke. I don’t know what to do.” So he jumped up and thought we should call our doula. So he called Sara-Marie and she said it was up to us if we wanted to call the hospital. We decided not to because the color and smell were ok. I laid some towels in bed and crawled back in for a long night. My contractions started pretty much right away and I didn’t sleep. At first they were 10 minutes apart and then around 7am they were 7 minutes apart. I called my midwife’s office at 8am and told them. They thought I should head into the hospital soon. I wanted to wait a bit but thought by noon would be good. My contractions were getting stronger but still 6 minutes apart when we left. Adam rushed around and got all our things in the car. But we forgot something! About half a mile down the road Adam realized that he took the birth plan out of the suitcase but never put it in his backpack. So back to the house we go. Once on our way again Adam decided that he needed to stop and get some cash for the hospital (??) and got $60 out of the ATM. I didn’t want to argue but that seemed really random. Also on the way we called Sara-Marie to let her know we were on our way tot he hospital.
We got to the hospital around 12:30pm Tuesday. Once at the hospital we had to wait a bit to get taken back to triage. In triage they hooked me up to the monitors and checked my dilation. I was 1cm dilated and 90% effaced. Yikes! Not that much progress. But I was in active labor according to the contractions so they kept me. 
We got to our room, it was like checking into a hotel with all our bags, and then proceeded to walk to halls for a while. When my contractions got to be too much and I was leaking too much fluid for the hall we went back to the room where I labored on the ball among other positions for most of the afternoon into the evening. I think something like 4-5 hours after getting admitted I was checked again for dilation and to see if they could break any more of my water bags. I was only 2cm! And then the doctor was reaching around up there looking for bags but couldn’t find more to break. Yikes! That was not fun!
So that was a little discouraging but I pulled it together and got into the zone. I labored for 4 more hours in the shower. (I can’t even imagine the hot water heaters that place had!) My contractions were getting really strong and close together. I was starting to doubt if I could do this so I was hoping I was going into transition. I got checked again for progress and was at 5cm 100% effaced. Yea progress! But not as much as I hoped. So I labored some more on the ball and then back in the shower for a bit. At about 12:45am I was really exhausted. I had been up for 24 hours at this point and was really hitting the end of my ability. I knew that if I wasn’t close to being done, there was no way I would have the strength or energy to push. Also my contractions had slowed down to 7+minutes apart and only every few were really painful. I was actually falling asleep between contractions. My nurse came back in and I asked about my options. Basically I could continue as is or get an epidural and rest. But I should be checked again before deciding. If I was 8+ then I would continue as is but if not I could decide then what I wanted to do. So the doctor came in and checked. I was 5cm maybe 6cm! What!!! Then I said “get me the epidural!!” In about 30 minutes I was feeling much better. The epidural was not painful at all. They hooked my up to the monitors and I fell asleep. So did Adam and Sara-Marie. We were all exhausted. Luckily neither Jonah or I had any problems with the epi. Every time a nurse or doctor came in to check the monitors they said what a perfect baby he was. Never went into the bad zones on the screen. And my blood pressure stayed even so I didn’t need anything extra. We slept. At about 4am my contractions were still 7 minutes apart and the nurse said that I needed to start pitocin. They started on the smallest amount. Not much change so they upped it to the next smallest dose. By 6:20am I could tell something was happening. My contractions were different and I felt pressure to push. I waited awhile to call the nurse. I wanted to make sure it was the real thing. She came in about 7am and checked. I was compete and he was at +3 station. Basically he was right there. I guess she could see his head. Yes! Finally! Well, it didn’t happen as fast as it seemed it would.
Stayed tuned for part two!
