A birth story, 7 months later. Part 1

Saturday, September 26th 2009, that day was supposed to be my last day pregnant with Jayden, the next day, Sunday, September 27th 2009 was Jayden’s due date. I was being induced first thing in the morning. I was doing everything to induce labor on my own. I walked around the neighborhood a billion times, yes a billion. I ate fresh pineapple, tried some nasty tea, and even did you know what. Unfortunately nothing worked, I made sure my bag was all packed and went to bed. I tried to sleep, but knowing I was going to meet my beautiful baby the next day made it impossible. We checked into the hospital around 9, and I was given a room. Dr. Dillon came in to start the induction. After 3 applications of Cervidil we gave up. Jayden just wasn’t ready to come out and I really was not progressing. In my head I understood that it was the right thing to do, but in my heart I was hurting. I wanted to meet my daughter; I wanted to be a mom.

The plan was to go into the hospital 5 days later, on Friday the 2nd for round two. I was to go into my doctors’ office in the morning to check my dilation and blood pressure, and she would send me over to the hospital after that. After another sleepless night, I woke up feeling pretty awful. I showered and started to get ready. All of a sudden I was feeling sharp pains in my abdomen. I knew it wasn’t the pain that comes with contractions, and I started to feel sick. I tried my best to get packed up and ready through the pain, and we were on our way. We showed up at Dr. Dillon’s office around 9, and she informed me that they had a very busy night at the hospital and they might not have room for me. I was so disappointed. They still had me pee in a cup, and go on with the check-up. When I peed in the cup in was very red. There was a lot of blood in my urine, and I was still having the sharp pains. They checked my blood pressure and it was high. They thought I either had kidney stones or preeclampsia. Because of the concerns I was sent over to the hospital.

I was put into a room with other patients, they were so full, and they were waiting for a room to open up. After an abdominal ultrasound they found out it was kidney stones, but they didn’t seem too concerned. They finally put me n a room and Dr. Dillon came in to check me. I was convinced that after the 3 doses of Cervidil and 4 days of walking around as much as possible I would go in dilated at least 2 cm. I am still convinced that the “checking dilation” hurt worse than anything else that day. She took off her gloves and looked at me and said “just a fingertip.” I came back with “WHAT?!?!” How can that even be possible? It was very clear at that moment that Jayden was not going to give in. She was comfortable in there and did not want to come out.

The rest of the day and night are kind of a blur. I know it took over 12 hours to dilate more than 5 cm. It was a long day. A lot of checking dilation, a lot of waiting, a lot of nothing. When Dr. Dillon broke my water she noticed that the amniotic fluid had a brownish tint. It was meconium. Jayden had pooped. Dr. Dillon said it wasn’t a huge deal. They would just be prepared when I delivered. More waiting, and being starving, and anxious. Finally the contractions started to actually hurt. I told the nurse and she suggested I get my epidural. I was terrified. But the guy came in and joked around about being drunk and it was over before I knew it. He asked me how much my pain had gone away and I told him it was completely gone. I was excited, maybe this would be the extent of my pain, maybe the epidural really would take it all away. Ha! No way. My legs actually started to feel pretty numb. It really bothered me and I wasn’t expecting it, so I told the nurse. She offered to turn down my epidural a little bit, and since I wasn’t feeling any pain I thought why not. After another couple of hours I started to feel those contractions again. These made the ones I was feeling before feel like a foot massage. I had the really painful contractions for the next 12 hours or so. I didn’t scream at Jeremy that I hated him for doing this to me, and it was all his fault. Although when my contractions were really bad I did tell him not to look at me.

Finally around 6:30 a.m. on Sunday I felt the urge to push. ....to be continued