I have been wanting to share the story of how Jacob joined us. It was quite an adventure!

After finding out on Thursday, December 15 (4 days past my due date) that I would be induced, I had a pretty sleepless night. I was still not dilated and only 50% effaced, so I would need a medication to encourage my body to dilate. I made sure everything was done around the house, finished packing, and then laid in bed thinking…my last night pregnant (possibly), my last night uncomfortable (hopefully), my last night of life as I know it. Also, what would the next day bring? How would the experience go? Would I end up with the birth I wanted? It’s weird to think about labor as a concrete time (knowing when it will happen) and wondering how you will fare and what you will go through in the next 24+ hours.

I woke up and got myself ready. I picked an outfit (which is silly, I know) and showered as slowly as I wanted. Josh and I left for the hospital to arrive for our 9:30 am “appointment” with labor and delivery. Unfortunately, L&D had us down for 10:00 pm (still not sure why this happened). We were left with the choice: do we go home to rest and save our energy for a long process ahead, or stay and start the process then? The nurse suggsted going home to rest so that the medication they were going to give me (cytotec to help progress my cervix) would work all night and they could start pitocin (which would initiate contractions) in the morning. We talked about it, and as I hadn’t slept much at all the night before I knew I wouldn’t rest at home. Besides, I’d taken care of everything at home so that we could come home to a clean, organized, ready house — I didn’t want to return home and sit there, restless. We decided to stay. I am so glad we did…

They got us set up in a very nice, large corner room. Once I had a gown and monitoring belt on, they started the medication. As it turns out, I had been having contractions when I arrived, but I couldn’t feel them. I was excited about that! I felt like it was good news for labor…little did I know! I was still not dilated and still only 50% effaced. The hospital had a bunch of movies on the tv, so Josh and I started one and tucked in to wait. It ended and we started another. I had started to feel some pain in my stomach, like light cramping. During the second movie it got worse, to the point that I was wincing and breathing loudly, but otherwise handling it fine. When the movie ended, I had reached a point where I had what felt like one long, unending stomach cramp. My stomach cramped up and stayed that way. I was really hungry (my last meal was at 9:00 am and I was not allowed to eat once I was settled in there) so I couldn’t tell if I had a stomach ache or contractions. As it turns out, I was contracting so close togethe that there was really no “downtime.” I had 1 minute, 30 second contractions which were 30 seconds apart. They were on top of one another. The nurse even debated whether or not I had nausea-realted cramping from the medication instead of contractions. The medication was intended to be given every 4 hours until enough dilation had occurred. Unfortunately for me, my doctor almost debated not giving me any more of the medication after that first dose because he knew it would make my already intense and continuous contractions worse – and making them worse was not an option. Without the medication labor would completely stall and would have ended any chance of a non-surgical birth, so I wanted to keep trying. They waited after the medication had worn off for an extra 2 hours before giving me the second dose, and sadly I was still not dilated or any more effaced than when I had arrived. The contractions were still non-stop, but the pain was less. They gave me a second dose and yes, the pain got worse.

At this point, it’s 8 pm and I have had a dose of morphine for the pain, which did nothing. Hours went by and I was in increasing amounts of pain. I was walking around the room, disconnecting the monitoring equipment if need be and stretching. The pain was pretty intense. I was started to get frutrated – all of this pain and no progress. They wouldn’t even label me as “in labor”! I started to have the thoughts – the kind that whisper “I don’t want to do this any more” (not like I had a chance) and this was the point that I probably would have given in and gotten an epidural had that been an option, but without progress, there was a high chance the epidural would have slowed the process down further. There was also a chance that the intense cramping was preventing my body from progressing because I was so tense…but there was no way to know. Suddenly, my water breaks. Wonderful! This must mean progress! The nurse comes running in ecstatic for me, as she thought we were losing the labor battle.  The downside is that the pain of the contractions had gotten so bad it was making me nauseated, and I threw up for a while, so I was not enjoying the good news.  As it turns out, I was dilated to 2 – labor had begun. The best part of my water breaking and labor starting was that my new best friend, the anesthesiologist, could come in and administer an epidural. After that I felt so much better, and my whole body relaxed, which I really needed. From 11 pm until maybe 3 am I went from 2 to 7 centimeters.

The calm before the storm...

Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow…