Hurry Up/Wait

Gabbie's Birth Story

Thursday, May 22nd

At my doctor's appointment I'm hooked up to the monitors, and I'm having contractions. Not big ones, but they're there and that's something different from the previous time I was hooked up to the monitors. Then, during the internal exam, my doctor tells me I'm a good 2 centimeters dilated, and then she strips my membranes. It was painful, but worth a try, I guess. She tells me I should have the baby by Monday. I have contractions all evening, but they go away when I go to sleep.

Friday, May 23rd

Aaron stayed home with me, because I'm having more contractions. Not anything regular or strong, but, again, they're definitely there. Then there are some gross things that happen (I'll spare you the details, but lets just say that it had to do with my mucus plug), and I freak out. I'm still contracting on and off, and the gross stuff keeps happening. That night during my kick count, the baby moves six times in 2 hours, which doesn't meet the cut-off, so we headed to the hospital.

Once there they hook me up to the monitors, and see that I'm having contractions every 1 to 3 minutes, but I'm only at 3 centimeters, and the baby is doing great, so after a couple of hours of monitoring, we're sent home. I thought I'd be disappointed, but it was late at night and I wanted to be in my own bed bad enough that I was actually happy to be going home. Since my contractions are happening so often I'm instructed to come in if they get stronger (I can't talk through them or concentrate on what someone else is saying) or if my water breaks. I'm still in disbelief that I'm ever going to give birth.

Saturday, May 24th

Again, I'm having contractions and gross issues on and off all day long. We're counting the contractions, but they never really become regular or stronger.

Then, at 5:30 in the evening, I go to the bathroom and notice a small trickle of fluid when I stand up. Since I have to go the bathroom about every 10 minutes, I notice that this becomes a pattern, and after about an hour say something to Aaron: "Honey, I think my water may have broken."

In order to be super sure that it's broken (because I really don't want to go to the hospital and be sent home again - how embarrassing!) I suggest we take a walk to see if I can get more to come out. We go for a walk and nothing happens, but I notice the trickle after peeing yet again, so I decided to sit on a towel in bed and wait to see what's happening.

At around 8 pm, Aaron comes in and informs me that the hockey game is about to start, so maybe I should check again to see if I'm leaking fluid before he gets settled in to watch the game. I stand up, go into the bathroom, and flood the floor.

"Yep! My water is definitely broken!"

We gather all of our things, still packed and ready from the night before, and head out to the hospital. Between the time my water broke and the time we make it to the car 10 minutes later, my contractions come on strong. On the way to the hospital I contract hard every 1 to 2 minutes.

"This is going to go fast", I think to myself. But no such luck. We get upstairs, they check me, and I'm only at 3-4 centimeters. Since my water broke, though, I'm staying and having the baby. My contractions get stronger, and are still happening about every 1 to 2 minutes. The doctor suggests that since I'm not progressing and am so uncomfortable, that I get the epidural. He must have asked at the exact right time, because even though I was going to try to go completely natural, I agree.

(As a side note, Aaron and I both noticed that between the resident on call on Friday, and the one I saw on Saturday, there are some ridiculously good looking male OB residents at our hospital. I reassured him that he didn't have to worry; at that point Johnny Depp could have been my doctor and I wouldn't have given him a second look.)

It seems like about five minutes later, I'm in my room and the anesthesiologist comes in (I spelled that right the first try!). It takes him about four (painful) tries to get the epidural in, during which I'm contracting every minute or so. Since I felt pressure in my left hip while he was putting it in, I have to lie on my side for the rest of labor. I'm also hooked up to an IV with a saline drip, the monitor, and a blood pressure cuff at this time. I feel like I'm hooked up to everything and its brother.


Sunday, May 25th

It's about midnight when we're finally settled in the room and all hooked up. The resident announces he's going for a nap, and we should do the same. I try, but two things prevent me from sleeping - 1) I HATE the epidural (it makes me feel altered because my legs are tingly and heavy), and 2) the pure excitement. I think I got about 40 minutes of sleep all night long, and Aaron didn't get much more. I had to call for the nurse any time I needed to turn over or if I needed to pee, which given the amount of fluid they were pumping into me, was pretty frequently.

At 4 am, I get checked again, and I'm at about 5 centimeters. The epidural pretty much stopped my progress. Awesome. The doctor decides it's time to hook me up to pitocin to get things moving again. Yet another tube is hooked up.

My contractions speed up again and get stronger. By seven in the morning I feel the need to push, badly, and the epidural is wearing off. I start pushing, and feel every second of it. About an hour later the doctor comes in. Thirty-nine minutes and some strange gutteral noises later, we have our daughter.

(The cone head was almost completely gone by the next day.)

We're exhausted but exuberant, so incredibly happy that she's finally here.

On her birthday:

And two weeks later:


I'm so in love.