We were scheduled to arrive at the hospital at 5:00pm. Grammy and Grandad were already at the house and ready to assume "James duty". John and I spent the morning with James, soaking up some extra special time with him. I took advantage of an afternoon nap with him knowing that would probably be the longest stretch of sleep I'd see for a while, ha! We gave lots of hugs and kisses and away we went!
It was a cold February day and a big snowstorm was in the forecast. My OB had told me the day before that she'd have the resident team keep her updated throughout the night and that she would see me throughout the morning (the 7th).
We waited for a little while before they called us back to our delivery room. Once we were in the room we signed papers and started to get settled. First up was Cytotec to start the induction process. I was already dilated to 1cm and not very effaced. My OB had tried to strip my membranes the day before to see if that would help move things along at all. Upon admission we also discovered that Ben was face up or "sunny side up". Not good!
After several hours of the first round of Cytotec, I was progressing a little, but not a ton. The resident didn't want to do another round of Cytotec, so we moved on to the cook balloon and Pitocin. But first, epidural!!! They had asked if I wanted the epidural before or after the Pitocin. Being no dummy, I requested the epidural first. I will note here that I had an excellent CRNA that placed my epidural. My epidural was a dream! I could still feel contractions minimally but had plenty of pain control. Glorious!
It was a little after midnight and things were starting to move forward. The goal for the rest of the night was to try and get some rest- which was literally impossible for me! I feel like the nurse was literally in every hour once I got my epidural, my pump was constantly beeping, my blood pressure cuff was going off, or the nurse needed something totally random. John on the other hand had plenty of naps (although he was say otherwise).
Around 7:00 am on the 7th my OB popped her head in. I was SO relieved to see her, especially knowing that it had snowed a bunch overnight! I think by this point I was roughly at 5 cm or so. We were still playing the waiting game but, the goal was to deliver by noon before my OB had to leave town. At that point my OB decided to break my water to speed things along. If I remember right, this was around the time she also turned Ben so that he would be face down and deliver easier, which was successful!
From 7:00 until about 10:00 was a blur. I wasn't able to get a nap. At one point there were several people in the room because Ben's heartrate was dropping. They decided I needed some oxygen, which was scary. My OB examined me and thought maybe he was pushing up against his cord. At one point I thought I was about to be wheeled back into the OR for a C-section, but then things turned the corner and calmed down.
It was roughly around 10:45 am when I started to notice more pressure. I casually mentioned it to John and he called the nurse in. Sure enough, it was go time! At that point, the room flooded with people and within about 10-15 minutes Ben was placed on my chest! He was perfect and all felt right in the world.
After an hour of skin-to-skin time and feeding like a champ, the baby nurse took him to give him his first bath and they prepped me to go to the mom-baby floor.
