I can't believe I haven't had a chance to write this out yet, and I don't want to forget it!!
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On Mon July 23rd, I was officially "past due". Like an unpaid utility bill. It was humid and unbearable hot, but I walked to the garden with the boys and Tom in the morning, and took another walk close to lunchtime with Timothy. I walked fast, and for about 30 minutes. Tom and I had this "strange urge" to do all sorts of piddly housework, so we both fussed and cleaned all morning and until mid-afternoon, and I kept taking time for short walks around the block throughout the day. Somewhere between 4 and 4:30pm, I realized I was having *real* contractions. I paid attention, and they were 10 minutes apart and getting quite strong. Must have been mopping the kitchen floor that did it.
But the real clincher, the "this is IT" vibe hit me when I put the water on to cook spaghetti and realized I'd cooked spaghetti the night Mark Thomas was born. Tom called his mother, I called my family in Colorado and headed upstairs for a shower and shave. By the time my MIL arrived at 7:30, I was having ctx every 2-3 minutes, and they were really difficult to manage. We arrived at the hospital at 8:10, where my labor nurse immediately tried to tie me to the bed with external monitors. I refused, and the nurse left the room and came back saying "how strange, your ob has orders for you to be allowed to walk around with monitoring only every 30 minutes". SCORE.
But once I did lay down for monitoring, I never stood back up. My contractions were just less than 2 minutes apart, and Jeffrey's heartrate kept shooting up past 170, and occasionally not settling down below 150 between stresses. I ended up laying on my left side, as that kept his heartrate down below 160 or so. I did not handle transition well this time at all, it hit incredibly fast and hard. Tom was a surprise this time, even telling me at one point "don't listen to the nurse, look at ME and do what I say". I did ask for some pain relief, but the nurse was kind enough to remind me that no matter how fast she worked, I was so close to delivery that she'd never get it to me in time.
At 9:45, my nurse said casually "let's see how ready you are, you sound and look pretty close", and then "oh my. no cervix there at all......well, Dr. Nelson is still on her way, good thing we know how to do this by ourselves....". My water was still intact, and I could feel his head bearing down, and then in swoooshed the OB, she offered to break my water and while I was debating this she had me flip over onto my right side "try pushing just once". I ended up flat on my back, as I'd slipped down the bed, and I was pretty pissed about it, but it really didn't matter. I've never felt this before, but I truly couldn't NOT push. He just about ejected himself, and with my second push my water broke, and he was out in less than 3 minutes. I screamed like a crazy person, and I heard my ob say "I just LOVE helping women do this" to some random nurse as I gathered myself for my next round. I grabbed him as his shoulders came out, and pulled him up to my chest.
He was perfect, and so clean. His head had a little smudge of vernix on it, and it smelled sooo sweet. Nobody bathed him, poked or prodded or even suggested he needed to be weighed and measured, and nobody even asked to take him away from me until his temperature wouldn't stay above 96.8 (!!) when I simply said "no, I'll just pull my gown off and you can cover us with warm blankets". I nearly smothered from the warmth, but he recovered nicely and has been laying on my chest ever since.
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On Mon July 23rd, I was officially "past due". Like an unpaid utility bill. It was humid and unbearable hot, but I walked to the garden with the boys and Tom in the morning, and took another walk close to lunchtime with Timothy. I walked fast, and for about 30 minutes. Tom and I had this "strange urge" to do all sorts of piddly housework, so we both fussed and cleaned all morning and until mid-afternoon, and I kept taking time for short walks around the block throughout the day. Somewhere between 4 and 4:30pm, I realized I was having *real* contractions. I paid attention, and they were 10 minutes apart and getting quite strong. Must have been mopping the kitchen floor that did it.
But the real clincher, the "this is IT" vibe hit me when I put the water on to cook spaghetti and realized I'd cooked spaghetti the night Mark Thomas was born. Tom called his mother, I called my family in Colorado and headed upstairs for a shower and shave. By the time my MIL arrived at 7:30, I was having ctx every 2-3 minutes, and they were really difficult to manage. We arrived at the hospital at 8:10, where my labor nurse immediately tried to tie me to the bed with external monitors. I refused, and the nurse left the room and came back saying "how strange, your ob has orders for you to be allowed to walk around with monitoring only every 30 minutes". SCORE.
But once I did lay down for monitoring, I never stood back up. My contractions were just less than 2 minutes apart, and Jeffrey's heartrate kept shooting up past 170, and occasionally not settling down below 150 between stresses. I ended up laying on my left side, as that kept his heartrate down below 160 or so. I did not handle transition well this time at all, it hit incredibly fast and hard. Tom was a surprise this time, even telling me at one point "don't listen to the nurse, look at ME and do what I say". I did ask for some pain relief, but the nurse was kind enough to remind me that no matter how fast she worked, I was so close to delivery that she'd never get it to me in time.
At 9:45, my nurse said casually "let's see how ready you are, you sound and look pretty close", and then "oh my. no cervix there at all......well, Dr. Nelson is still on her way, good thing we know how to do this by ourselves....". My water was still intact, and I could feel his head bearing down, and then in swoooshed the OB, she offered to break my water and while I was debating this she had me flip over onto my right side "try pushing just once". I ended up flat on my back, as I'd slipped down the bed, and I was pretty pissed about it, but it really didn't matter. I've never felt this before, but I truly couldn't NOT push. He just about ejected himself, and with my second push my water broke, and he was out in less than 3 minutes. I screamed like a crazy person, and I heard my ob say "I just LOVE helping women do this" to some random nurse as I gathered myself for my next round. I grabbed him as his shoulders came out, and pulled him up to my chest.
He was perfect, and so clean. His head had a little smudge of vernix on it, and it smelled sooo sweet. Nobody bathed him, poked or prodded or even suggested he needed to be weighed and measured, and nobody even asked to take him away from me until his temperature wouldn't stay above 96.8 (!!) when I simply said "no, I'll just pull my gown off and you can cover us with warm blankets". I nearly smothered from the warmth, but he recovered nicely and has been laying on my chest ever since.
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