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23-6-2008 - Evin's Birth Story

My mood while writing this blog: Ok

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I had a ton of things to get done over my spring break! As usual, I procrastinated over every last detail. On Wednesday night, April 2nd, my husband and I had a late supper of cheese quesadillas and went to bed. Normally, I would have gotten up every hour and a half or so to go to the bathroom. So, when I woke up at 2:28am for my first bathroom break, I was pleasantly surprised. Even though I hadn't bothered to turn the light on, the moonlight gave me a hint that something wasn't right when I wiped. I turned on the light and looked into a toilet full of blood. I told my husband that I was bleeding and he bolted straight up in the bed. A few seconds later, I felt something like the baby kicking me really hard--my water had broken.

Every book I read and every woman I talked to suggested that the water should be clear or maybe greenish if there was meconium in it. But, I was totally unprepared for my water to be bloody. My husband and I were very scared--especially since I was only 36 weeks along. When I paged our doctor, he told us to get to the maternity center quickly, so I was strangely scared and not scared at the same time. Drew drove us to the hospital and I shook quietly the whole way there.

When we got to the hospital, I still didn't realize that I was going to have the baby. I know that's silly, but I just didn't think it was time and that they would be able to stop things. About 30 minutes after we arrived, they told me that we were going to be having a baby and I was just shocked. I mean, I hadn't even had contractions yet. However, when the nurse checked my cervix I was already 3 cm dialated. The nurse also explained that my water was okay--though there was a bit more blood than they liked to see, she said that it was still clearish and not to worry. They told me to change into a gown and they put me into a LDR room (labor, deliver, & recovery). Since my group B strep test hadn't had time to come back, they went ahead and gave me 2 courses of iv antibiotics and fluids to protect the baby.

Around 4:30am or so, my in-laws arrived and kept my husband and I company while my body started to get itself together. By this time, I was experiencing contractions about every 10 minutes or so. They weren't too bad--like strong menstrual cramps, really. Since the nurses had confirmed that everything was okay with me and the baby, I waited until my doctor's normal arrival time of about 6:30am. As the morning passed on, my contractions gradually got closer together and were about 7 minutes apart when Dr. Gowen arrived. He checked me and found that I was dialated to 7 cm. This surprised me since I wasn't in agony--I mean, I was hurting, just not screaming and going nuts like you always see on tv. The nurses kept offering me pain meds but I wasn't hurting bad enough for all that. Up to that point, I just breathed through the pain until the contraction was over. Dr. Gowen decided to start me on pitocin to help make my contractions more regular and to speed things up a bit. Because he is a merciful doctor, he ordered my epidural to be administered before the pitocin.

Epidural--9:30ish

Last Check

Getting ready to push

Pushing

first meeting

hospital stay

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