It's amazing how different each labor and delivery is: a new adventure every time. Benjamin's story had a slow start, but got exciting in the end.
On Thursday, I had an OB appointment, and I was 3cm dilated. Friday morning, I woke up at 3:30am with contractions. Not super painful, irregular and far apart, but enough to keep me awake. I was hopeful, but even though the contractions continued on and off all day, they were never consistent enough to start timing. They picked up a bit in the evening, but were gone by around 11pm, and I went to bed.
The contractions woke me back up at 4:30am Saturday morning. I gave up trying to sleep and got up to watch Gilmore Girls for a couple of hours until the family started to get up. By this point, I was already exhausted and frustrated, and I decided it was time to try to get things going. Before lunch, I did about 20 minutes of yoga, making sure to do every pose I'd read about that was supposed to help baby drop and engage. I took a nap with Grace after lunch; I got about an hour of sleep before the contractions woke me up again. After that, we all went to the park and walked down to the lake and back. That seemed to do the trick. The contractions finally started to get consistent at about 10 minutes apart and a little stronger.
They spaced out a bit as we were getting the kids to bed. When Omar and I went to bed around 10:30pm, contractions were about 10-15 minutes apart. I dozed in between contractions and kept timing them, anywhere from 7-12 minutes apart. Just after midnight, I got up to use the restroom, and it was like some one flipped a switch. Contractions instantly jumped to 2-3 minutes apart and got intense. I only waited through a few of those before I woke Omar up and told him it was time to go. We called the OB on call to let them know, and Omar called his dad to come sit with the kids, and we were off.
My hatching Pokémon egg shirt was a big hit with all the nurses at the hospital. They got me on the monitors right away and checked me; I was at 6cm. A few minutes later, the OB on call (Dr. Rutter) came in. She checked me again to be sure baby was still head down, and I was 8cm; Dr. Rutter said it was going to go quick, Dr. Zachrison probably wouldn't make it. We managed to get an IV started and sign all the admission paperwork. Then the contractions started rolling one after another, and I was struggling to breath through them. I rolled to my side while Omar did counter pressure on my back through a few contractions while they went to call Dr. Rutter. Once she came in, they broke down the bed, and I rolled to my back. Dr. Rutter said it would just be a couple pushes, one to move him down, and one to get him out, and she was right.Within minutes, Benjamin was on my chest, crying and peeing on me.
The nurses checked the records and told me we walked into the hospital at 1:26am, and Benjamin was born at 2:09am. Dr. Rutter said he had a C-section head, no cone shape, because he came out so quickly. He's beautiful and healthy, 7lb 8oz, 21 inches long. We had a short hospital stay and cam some Monday afternoon. Benjamin is perfect, and we are all in love with our newest family member.
