Earlier in the day:
On November 2nd, in the middle of the day I was having contractions on and off but they were not very close together and ended up stopping if I got up or walked around for a little. Later that night we went to Andrew's mom's house to eat some dinner, after dinner I suggested to Andrew that we go on an hour long walk to see if we could get anything started. Even if nothing was going to start, I wanted to go to the hospital because my hip was hurting pretty badly. During the walk I had several contractions but of course they would stop as soon as I stopped walking and or sat down. After the walk we went back to pick up the girls and decided to go down to the hospital for my hip. We stopped at home first to get the girls ready for bed so that coming home would be easier and threw our hospital bags in the car "just in case". The whole way down we told the girls we were probably not staying at the hospital and that we would just show them where I would be once the baby came etc.
Once we got to the hospital at around 10 p.m. I got in my gown and told them about my hip, they wanted to monitor for an hour just to make sure everything was ok with baby. As soon as I got in the bed the nurse came in and checked me, I was at a 4 and 70% effaced! We were pretty surprised because I had been at a 1 and 50% for 7 weeks. After the hour had passed I progressed to a 4+ and once again we were caught off guard and admitted. Vivian was very concerned for me while I was getting the IV and Jocelynn could not contain her excitement. Later, Andrew's parents came and got the kids. After 2 hours I was pretty much a 5 still and my cervix was pretty posterior, so we decided to break my water to get things going a little faster, this was at 2 a.m. During the next 50 min I was really starting to feel it and started to get anxiety that things might turn out like Vivian's delivery. I got to the point where I couldn't focus and started crying and basically screaming uncontrollably, the nurse came in and checked me at 2:50 a.m. and I was at a 7. I thought I could get through it, but when the next contraction came at 3:00 a.m. I asked for the epidural. Around 4:00 a.m. the nurse came in to put in a catheter, but I ended up being 10 cm and fully effaced, which was surprising and scary. Scary because my epidural was only working on one side (never had that happen before) and surprising because I have had 12 and 13 hour labors in the past so I was prepared to be in labor for much longer. At 4:15 a.m. we got ready to push and at 4:37 little Oliver was born. He was born at 38w 2d, on November 3rd and was 8lbs 1oz, 20 inches long. The first thing I said when I heard him cry was, " Oh my gosh he even sounds like a boy!" and then we both almost started crying.
My placenta took a good 25 minutes to come out (and that was with painful kneading on my stomach for all that time), once they got it out I am pretty sure they cleaned my uterus out, so I haven't bled much and it was also my first time ripping during birth. The recovery has been a little more rough then my other two.
My Thoughts:
I cannot believe I cut my labor time in half this time, it seems like it came and went so much quicker!
I am so glad that It all happened the way that it did, it was a great experience for me and I feel so blessed that everything went well.
Babies are little miracles, it blows my mind how different each labor is and what is required to get them here. We love our Ollie baby!
