Well, on Wednesday 9/3 I made my way to the doctor's office for an appointment which turned out to be my last visit. I was almost 4cm dilated and 80% effaced but my blood pressure was high. I can personally attribute the bp spike to my decision to join Tonya, Therese and Anna in Ann Arbor for lunch that afternoon -- fully forgetting it was the first day of classes at the University and for some dumbass reason we met there for lunch anyway....hahahahah. So, after eating great Indian food and enjoying a nice afternoon - then nearly killing 420 stupid students walking across the street anywhere they wanted while gabbing about got knows what on their cellphones, I went to the doc. Anyway, she decided I should head over to the hospital for some bloodwork to make sure I wasn't developing toxemia or preeclampsia. So I left the office and something told me I should just stop at home and get my bags anyway, which is where I was headed. I was talking to my mom on the phone and the doc beeped in, talk about personal service!! She had spoken with the doc on call at the practice - initially to tell her I was coming over for some tests and they decided since I was only 9 days away from due date, they weren't going to bother with monitoring, they were just going to induce labor so I should stop at home and get my stuff.....its a completely jarring feeling when after weeks and weeks of telling you to not have the kid, they just one day decide hey, we're going to make you have the kid now.
So I rolled up to the house, got my stuff together and ate one last meal knowing I'd be high and dry at the hospital for at least a day, played with the dog a last time before he's not the only baby in my life then made my way to St. Joe's. I was especially not in a hurry cause of course it was Chris' first day of class for the fall semester and he was at the Livonia campus. He knew I was headed there so he was just meeting me after class cause nothing was going to happen before that time anyway.
I checked in and they took me right to my labor and delivery room. What a crazy feeling. Here is where my baby is going to be born. This is the last place I'll be as a mother-to-be and actually be a mommy. They broke my water at 8:15pm and I was 4cm and 90% effaced. They intended to start me on a pitocin drip to accelerate labor, but right as that was supposed to happen 6 other ladies came in ready to deliver and there weren't enough nurses to cover all those deliveries plus monitor my pitocin schedule every 15 minutes. Luckily I was contracting a little on my own so they could just let me sit and hang out. Many people called or got calls so I spent some time on the phones. My parents decided to make their way up here despite my insistance nothing was going to happen even if they just came in the morning, but sometimes there's no telling my mom, she was going to be here come hell, high water or Hurricaine Hannah....hehehehe. They were able to restart the pitocin just after 11pm. I really wanted to try and go through labor as far as possible without an epidural but after a couple of hours it got quite difficult. I finally asked for the meds just after 1am after trying positions and breathing and everything. I would have made out with the antesthesiologist for sure cause he was like an angel from above :) I shouldn't have waited cause the positions helped me to lose more amniotic fluid than I should have and as the night turned into morning and the contractions got stronger and closer together the little man's heartrate was dipping and having some issues. The doctor at the time (around 4am) just said to take me off the pitocin and see where it went. Labor stayed hard - which was good cause it was on my own and the baby's heart rate leveled out so things were OK for a while again.
My parents arrived so we saw them for a while before they went back out to the waiting room. Noreen arrived in case Chris wasn't going to be able to handle the pushing phase at about 7am. I am so happy she was able to make it cause the rest of the morning turned to a sort of chaos. The doctor's changed at 7am and the baby's heart rate started suffering again. The amniotic infusion they tried didn't work out so well and she didn't like what she was seeing on the monitor. This is when talks of c-section started floating around. The nurse seemed to think we could still do it and I hoped she was right cause I did not want the surgery at all. Things went along for a little while with hopes we were not having surgery and I was going to be able to deliver.
Next phase - nurse makes 1 phone call and suddenly 12 people are in my room (nurse and tech types) to unplug everything and wheel me into OR. They said if they plugged in the monitors and the baby's heartrate was back up that we'd wait 15 minutes and if it stayed up we'd go back to the labor and delivery room. No such luck. Next thing I knew they were moving me to the operating table and prepping for a c-section. Getting enough meds was tricky but I don't think I felt too much more than a planned c-section would have, but since I've never had one of those I guess I wouldn't know, right?
Anyway, we welcomed Jake into the world at 10:24 am, weighing in at 8 lbs 10 oz and measuring 19.5 inches long with a crazy head of dark soft hair. He's got big feet and these cute curly ears. Everyone that has met him so far fell in love immediately. I'm working (ok, I'm having the husband work on) a video slideshow to just post up here so you can see the pictures so far. We're expected to go home tomorrow and we're doing pretty well. Chris is even teaching him about cranes and bacon, so he's well rounded :)
Check by in a few to see the pics. Love to all and see you soon!
