Wednesday was a whirlwind of a day. Jake and I got to my doctor's appointment only to find out it was cancelled due to a surgery that was taking longer than expected. WHAT?! We had been waiting all week long with top notch excitement to find out what was going on with our baby and plans for delivery!
Disappointed, we headed back to our respective jobs with plans to see her partner later that afternoon. During noon conference, my doctor paged me wanting to know if I could run upstairs to her office right that minute for her to squeeze me in during her lunch break. Done. Texting Jake as I navigated the fastest route I knew through the hospital halls and elevators, I promised to keep him informed.
I was dilated 2 centimeters, and she wanted to know if I wanted to come in that evening for an induction. Talk about making a giant split-second decision! My 6 precious weeks of maternity leave began Monday whether we had a baby or not, and my doctor would be out of town for the next 9 days, leaving me to deliver with the doc on call if I were to wait for spontaneous labor or be induced the following week. "Sure," I said. I then walked out of the office in somewhat of a daze. What do I do now? Do I return to work to round this afternoon on my one patient who's leaving the hospital today anyways? Do I go home to "prepare" for labor tonight (how do I do that...)?
I called Jake and told him the tentative plan. All at once I was completely overwhelmed by joy, excitment, fear, anxiety. Was I making the right decision? Would the delivery go smoothly? Would the baby be healthy? Jake, in his usual calm, reassured me that this was a good plan, and that everything would be fine.
On the way to the hospital!
We spent the evening watching the Illini lose to Penn State. At home. Not the best start. We then headed to the hospital, bright eyed and bushy tailed. They started the induction around 10 pm. Around midnight, I announced to Jake that I didn't think it was working, because I felt exactly the same as I had before. Ha. I'll watch what I say next time. By 1 am, I was already having very painful contractions, but was still only dilated to 3 cm. We went ahead and had the epidural placed, which was both my best friend and worst enemy.
The epidural took unevenly, so in order to have adequate pain control, my left leg was COMPLETELY numb to touch, and I couldn't move it even a twitch. We spent most of the night and early morning fussing with the epidural, lowering the dose, raising the dose, pulling it out a little, all with little relief. To make matters worse, Ava kept having variable decels of her heartrate when I would lie on my back in any position. So I also spent centimeters 4 through 10 sitting straight up in the bed, unable to move from the waist down, still feeling a good dose of each contraction. I felt like I was trapped in a fishbowl, being so immobile and uncomfortable all at once. Poor Jake's hand got a work-out from all the squeezing I gave it in the last couple of hours!
My doctor came to check on me at noon, and announced that I was fully dilated and ready to start pushing in about a half an hour. That was the best news I'd heard in my entire life! The final stages of labor went very smoothly, and our beautiful baby girl was born without complication at 1:15 pm on Thursday, February 19th, weighing in at 20.5 inches and 7 lbs 3 oz. What joy!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment