Labor

My dad drove me from the doctor's office to the hospital, and my husband came straight to the hospital from work.

It sucked that when I signed in, I had to fill out a paper with name, etc, and it also asked for the name of the pediatrican we would use. I just left that part blank. We HAD a doctor but obviously wouldn't be using his services.

So they get me back to my room and start trying to get my IV in. Nurse 1 tries. No luck. Nurse 2 tries. No luck. They get heating pads for my arm. A vein blows. They have the nurse anesthesist come and try. It takes her 2 tries but finally she gets it. They load me up with fluids and I keep having to get up and go to the bathroom.

They try to put in the drug to start labor but my cervix is still so tightly closed they aren't able to do it without causing me horrible pain.

They decide to give me the epidural before that.

I get up to go pee one more time. I took a long look at myself in the mirror, the last time I'd see myself pregnant with Sullivan.

My OB arrives as they are putting in the epidural. We chat about his recent unexplained illness. (He is fine now). While he is talking, he raises one eyebrow. I tell him his face will freeze like that. ha.

Labor lasted 23 hours. During that time our family and friends were in and out of the room visiting with us.

Labor was not progressing well at all. I dilated to a 6 and got stuck. My OB did an ultrasound, found no answers for why the baby wasn't moving down. He asked if he could pray with us. And there, in my hospital room, he held my hand and prayed with me and my husband.
Soon after we started talking about a csection. If the baby wasn't going to move down, we'd have to have the surgery. I was okay with that, but knew recovery would be bad.

The nurse came in and started going over funeral arrangements with us for Sullivan. She had called local cemeteries to find out what they offer, the cost, etc.

My OB had to leave for vacation before it was time to deliver. I'd gone to him for almost 7 years and did not want someone else delivering my baby! But a nurse friend of ours said the on-call doctor is her personal OB and he is great. Then our family friend who is a physician called and said he knew the on-call doc and we'd be fine. That was very reassuring.

While my nurse was talking to us about the cemeteries, the on-call dr came in and checked me. Still at a 6. We talked about 10 more minutes about funerals and I interrupted the nurse feeling a lot of pressure (TMI, but I thought I had to poop, that is what it felt like). She checked me and I had dilated to a 10. "No wonder!" She said, "You're ready to push!"

I really think the prayers are what got me from a 6 to a 10 within ten minutes.

I asked my nurse to let my regular OB know that I didn't have to have a c-section. She had him paged and he called my room and I was able to talk to him on the phone for a few minutes before delivering.

The on-call doc came in and we got ready to push.

It only took me probably 10 minutes. I pushed for just 3 contractions.
At one point I thought "I'm doing this to deliver a DEAD baby!" And I made myself not think about it like that because otherwise there is no way I could push.

We were relieved to finally be getting this behind us after 23 hours, but yet I also wanted to keep him in my belly. Just keep him forever.

But I pushed anyway, and at 3:40pm Sullivan was born.