I woke up the morning of Feb. 2 having strong contractions every 15 minutes or so. Today's the day!, thought I, and called my wonderful friend Jana who would be babysitting to warn her. Contractions never got very close together, 8 minutes at the most, but they were good and strong. Dan came home at 3 to get us ready, but we kept putting off going to the hospital. Things just weren't picking up. What should I do? I knew they were labor contractions, we lived half an hour from the hospital, and I was at 4 cm. at my last appt. We went in after dinner. We were there for about 3 hours, and they sent me home!! I wasn't progressing quickly enough, apparently.
Here's where it starts to get weird though (well, besides the fact that they wouldn't induce or break my water and I was a week overdue): they prescribed a sleeping pill. They even offered morphine! Apparently when you're having false labor a good night's sleep will make it stop. However, since I wasn't having false labor, I woke up every 15 min. with a minute-long contraction, all night long.
More of the same when the morning started (I can't say "when I woke up" because I hadn't been asleep for more than 20 min. all night). Dan stayed home from work to take care of us. By 3pm I was desperate. I called my dr's office and told them I couldn't keep going like this. They prescribed more Ambien. Keep in mind that I'm a week overdue at this point. I had my weekly check-up the next morning, though, so I figured at that point I'd stage a sit-in in the examining room until they were willing to admit me.
I didn't have to wait that long.
That night, in my Ambien-induced fog, I still was waking up having contractions every 15 min. Then I decided around midnight I wanted a bath. Got in the tub, things started to speed up some. Dan and I still can't figure out who decided we needed to go to the hospital, but by the time I was out of the bath and dressed, Dan had called Jana, gotten the kids in the car and had all our stuff ready to go. Remember we live half an hour from the hospital where I'm supposed to deliver....
Contractions are definitely coming faster. We get to the highway, and my water breaks. I start feeling the urge to push. I'm doing everything to keep from pushing, but at this point I can't stop myself. The Ambien-induced fog is nowhere to be found now. Just before the turn-off to go to Tacoma, I tell Dan we're not going to make it to Tacoma, we'll need to go to the closer hospital in Puyallup (pronounced "pyoo-al-up", for you non-Washingtonians). He was already pretty freaked out, and now is even more so, yet somehow every bit of energy is going to getting us to the hospital as quickly as possible. I'm giving him directions. Very much feeling her head coming down. As we pull into the circle drive I can feel her crowning (remember them talking about the "ring of fire" in childbirth class?). I tell Dan she's coming out, he reaches over and can feel her head through my stretch pants.
He jumps out of the car, runs to the ER and tells the staff, "My wife's having a baby."
They reply, "Ok, just take her up to L & D."
"No," he says, "I mean the head is coming out now!"
15 doctors and nurses run to our van and deliver her the rest of the way (by the time they got there, her head was out.) They delivered her the rest of the way, cut the cord, held her up so I could see her, and then whisked her off to L & D, while they got me cleaned up and put back together. The kids saw pretty much the whole thing from the back of the van and then came in to the hospital and got taken care of by the ER nurses until Dan could get Jana' s phone # from me.
So all's well that ends well. We were somewhat of a legend at the hospital. I thank God that the uterine rupture they're so freaky about with VBAC patients didn't happen in the car, that Esther didn't have low blood sugar when she was born from my gestational diabetes, that we did make it to the hospital, that everything else that could've gone wrong didn't, that we're not having more kids, and that (thanks to Dan's prodding) we called our insurance and got it covered as an emergency delivery, even though we'd delivered outside of their network. And that I had a beautiful, healthy baby girl who brings me joy every day!
Oh, and Summer, I hope you're having an easier time of it than I did!
1 comment:
That was a doozy, I remember it when it happened.
I'm a fan of VBACs though, so whoooot on that!
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