Birth Story

I was scheduled to be induced at 5:30am on Friday, July 6. At around 3am, I woke up having contractions that were sporadic at about 30 minutes apart, but wasn't sure if they were the beginning of labor or just braxton hicks contractions. We called the hospital at 5am, and they said their beds were all full and they would call us back when they had an opening. They finally called back at 11am and told us to be down there at noon. When we got there, the nurse checked me and I was almost 2cm dilated and 80% effaced, so she started me on the prostaglandin gel to help ripen my cervix and get it ready for the pitocin. She only did 2 of the 3 rounds of gel when my doctor came in and checked me and said that I did not need anything else and was already progressing on my own. Basically, I had gone into labor on my own at the same time they planned the induction! My contractions were coming about 5-10 minutes apart and lasted 1-2 minutes. They were uncomfortable, but not unbearable. Within an hour or two I had dilated to 4cm and my contractions were becoming extremely painful, coming 1 minute apart and lasting over a minute each! I decided to ask for the epidural at that point. During the next 30 minutes, my contractions moved to my back and I was in so much pain, I began vomiting after each contraction and shivering uncontrollably. My water broke while I was throwing up. The anesthesiologist finally came in, but when he checked my blood pressure, it had shot up to about 160/80, so he would not administer the epidural without first drawing my blood and testing it. So I had to wait another hour for my blood work to come back and for him to decide he would go ahead and give me the epidural. Let me say, that this was the absolute worst hour of my entire life! I seriously thought I was going to die. Raphael was such a great support and I don't think I could have gotten through it without him.

Once I got my epidural, I was like a new person. That was the best decision I could have made and I only wished I had requested one earlier! Within two hours I progressed from a 4 to an 8, and an hour later at midnight, I was fully dilated. The nurse had me do a couple of practice pushes, which were unsuccessful because I couldn't feel anything. So she said she would give me another hour to let the baby move down and we would try again. When she had me try again an hour later, I was able to move the baby a little bit, but still wasn't getting very far, so despite my protesting, she decided she needed to turn my epidural down just a “little bit” and we would try again in another half hour. Well, shortly thereafter, I began feeling a lot of pain again. I frantically beeped my buzzer for her to come back in. I accused her of turning down my epidural too much and told her that I didn’t want to go back to ‘that place’ again and that I needed “more drugs”! So she told me there was nothing she could do and that I just needed to get the baby out. I was exhausted and miserable, but Raphael and my family and friends were there to cheer me on and with their help, I was able to make a lot of progress and he finally came out at 2:55am on July 7, 2007!

He weighed 7lbs 15oz and was 20.5 inches long!!!
Much bigger than many people expected. He was absolutely perfect and we were all shocked that he didn't have a thick head of dark hair like his daddy! He is almost bald and the hair he has isn't very dark and isn't curly either (at least not yet anyways!). His APGAR scores were 8/9 and he had the most beautiful cry. Raphael and I are so in love with him and I would do it all over again in a second!