Sarah’s to-do list
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
as of 6 pm

I always have an excess of things to do on my days off, especially since my days off the previous week were spent in Fargo, but I figured I’d finish up the rest on Monday since I had that day off too.  I was making decent progress around 6pm, with laundry running & a good chunk of baby stuff taken care of, when…um, what was that?! 

Aaaand, my water broke.

Weirdest.thing.ever.

After I determined that this was indeed what had happened, I came downstairs and told David, “Um, I think my water just broke.”  We called Maternity Care and they told us to come in right away—they thought they’d be able to find a room for us.  How reassuring.  We packed our bags kind of in a daze, while David referred back to my book on what to bring to the hospital (see the not-crossed-off #10 on my to-do’s), called our parents, and headed out.  Oh yeah, see also #12; so we had to stop for gas on the way.  When we were about halfway to the hospital, I started having contractions about 3 minutes apart.

We got to the hospital about 7pm and went to Maternity, although they seemed to have no idea why I was there; apparently, even though my doctor has all the paperwork faxed after the 36 week appointment, the hospital hadn’t gotten my file together yet?!  We ended up getting one of the last two available rooms!  The nurse leading us to our room said, “Wow, you look way too calm to be in labor!”  Riiight.  Although, as I’ve said when people asked if I was ready for labor, she’ll come out whether or not I’m ready!  We got all set up in the room and I got my lovely external monitors on to listen to her heartbeat and measure my contractions.  It was entertaining watching the numbers on the contraction monitor.  The nurse said they only kind of meant something—it might register at 200, but if you’re still laughing & joking around, clearly it’s not that bad.  On the other hand, it could only show a 50, but she said she could tell by looking if it was a bad one or not.  We thought it was fun that when it went over 100, it would flash a + in front of the number.  Bonus points!!  (I suppose that means they weren’t actually that bad.)  They were still coming about 3-4 minutes apart, and I was at 3 cm.  They had called my doctor, who was completely surprised to hear that I was in labor, especially since I’d just seen her 8 hours earlier!  And I wasn’t due for another 2 1/2 weeks!  The nurse told me that if the baby decided to come during the night, another doctor would be delivering since my doctor was home with her little kids and her husband was out of town.

Since nothing too exciting seemed to be happening, David went out to find us some snacks.  [He had just been about to see if I wanted dinner yet when I came downstairs to tell him that we needed to call the hospital.]  It was determined that most likely, nothing would happen before midnight, but they’d start me on Pitocin in the morning.  [When your water breaks, typically they want to get the baby out quickly due to an increased risk of infection.]  David’s parents and sister stopped by that evening, and my mom and brother ended up getting into town about 12:30 am.  The nurse told us to try to get some sleep, but as soon as I’d start to fall asleep, I’d have another contraction, so she gave me a couple options:  pills or a shot.  Um, I’ll take the pills, thanks.

After a few hours of sleep (they were planning on starting the IV around 6 am), the nurse came in and told me I could take a shower & order some breakfast, and after that I’d get all hooked up with drugs.  I’m pretty sure the room service people thought I was crazy when I ordered French toast, a ham & cheese omelet, juice, fruit, and a donut…just for myself.  My mom and brother came to the hospital around the time our breakfast came; Philip was going to need to leave by noon to get back to Fargo.  David’s parents came at some point as well.  The rest of the morning was pretty exciting…I got a new nurse, contractions kind of mellowed out, and I got my IV put in.  On the fourth try.  Pretty sure I thought I’d throw up at one point there [needles are not my friend].  My nurse tried once in each hand, then she called in another nurse who tried once in my right arm, and then they called the swat team, who finally got it in.  They got the Pitocin going to speed up the contraction process, then told me to get some lunch before I got my epidural.  They try to do that between 5 and 7 cm, and I was at 5.  The nurse turned up the Pitocin, and David ordered my lunch for me, then everyone went to get lunch.  My lunch came right around the time when the drugs started doing their thing (around 12:30) and my contractions started getting really painful.  I could make it through maybe one bite between contractions.  It was great.

The nurse called the anesthetist to get my epidural going, although the guy she called was apparently at a different hospital that day, so he had to call the one who was at the hospital I was at.  It all ended up taking a very long, painful time, and during the time I was getting the epidural, I had three incredibly painful contractions and thought I was going to DIE.  After that was all done, it was all good and I was incredibly tired.  I had dilated to 9 cm at this point (about 2pm), so they told me to get a little bit of rest before the doctor got there.

I got another new nurse at 3 [who, by the way, was fantastic], and about 3:45 they told me to start pushing.  I was still really tired, so between contractions, I actually took mini-naps.  That’s okay, right?!  Two hours later, at 5:36 pm, on January 20, our little baby girl made her appearance!  I got to see her for a little bit after she was flung onto my stomach, but then she was whisked away since I needed some [read:  1 hour’s worth] stitches and obviously that should be done before I regain feeling in the lower half of my body!  [She decided to be super-Baby and stuck her arm up by her head on the way out.] The doctors (a resident was there too) and nurse asked if got to hear her name yet, so I asked David to see her and find out what her name was.

Welcome, Abigail Grace!

Our baby Abby measured at 20 inches long, 6 lbs 4 oz, with lots of hair!  She got to meet three of her grandparents and her Auntie Kristen when she was two hours old.  She was not impressed at the prospect of her first bath, but we made it through!  [And I look super pale.  Fantastic.]