My weekend of fun and things.

Saturday.  You know, that day when I'm not supposed to have to be at the hospital?  Those are precious few these days.  I woke up feeling all kinds of motivated to get some contractions going.  We went grocery shopping and walked every aisle.  I vacuumed my apartment (again).  Put away the groceries.  Contractions were about every 10 minutes and a little painful - maybe a 4 on the completely arbitrary scale of pain that I've just made up.

And then, there was the bleeding.  And then more bleeding.  And then even more.  First time mama here, I was nervous, I called the on-call doc.  He said it was probably fine but that I could go get checked out if it would give me peace of mind.  It would, TYVM.

Tom got us to The Lank in 25 minutes flat.  A quick check revealed that everything was fine and I had not progressed one iota, despite a day filled with contractions.  Le unfair!  But the outrageously rough internal and the speculum exam promised more bleeding to come.  Joy.

I was discharged and went home.  On the way home, the contractions picked back up fairly painfully.  I went rather uncomfortably to bed, figuring that if I could sleep through them, they couldn't be that bad (I stand by this solid reasoning).

Fast forward to 4am.  Something is excavating my uterus with a rusty spoon.  I suspect that something is Aidan.  Contractions are every 6-8 minutes and very painful.  I try everything I can possibly think of to calm them down (I know.  I spent how long trying to spur them on, and here I am trying to calm them down?  But at this point, I have no faith that these are "real" and I haven't slept in 2 days and I just need a break).  Hot shower.  Hot bath.  Complaining to the girls.  Standing.  Sitting.  Lying down.  Nothing helps and I want to die, but I'm too embarrassed to call the doctor again.

After about 4 hours, I can't take it anymore.  I suck it up and call the doctor.  She tells me to head on down to the hospital to see if we're ready for a baby.  It takes us another hour to get ready to leave and make it to the hospital.  Humiliatingly, the SAME nurse from Saturday was still on duty.  She remembers me.  Of course.

10:30, we check in and I'm still 2cm/80%/-2.  Unbelievable.  I am in agony and NOTHING has changed.  At this point, the tears start flowing.  No, I don't want to be induced.  I quite honestly don't. But I haven't slept more than 4 of the last 48 hours, I'm in insane amounts of pain, and I just don't know how I'm going to survive the next 15 days.  Especially when the nurse tells me these painful ctx are likely to continue every day until I deliver.  I cried a lot.  Like, a lot.

At this point, I am given two options.
a) be sent home with sleeping pills.  Hope something progresses.
b) take a morphine nap and be rechecked in six hours.

I opted for the morphine nap, since I still really feel that something HAS to be happening, and do not want to go back home just to drive back here to be rechecked.  So - morphine shot in the ass, and a nap.  The contractions are still every 6 minutes or so, and I can still feel them, but the morphine takes the edge off and I am able to pass out in between them.  So I get some sleep, kinda.

Around 5, I woke up, because the morphine had clearly worn off.  The contractions are now every 4 minutes and even more painful.  I ponder my clearly imminent painful death for an hour until the doctor arrives to "oh-so-gently" examine me.  Success!  I am 3-4 cm, still 80%, but it's good enough for everyone.  I am staying, and I am having this baby!  Contractions are coming every 2-3 minutes and boy do they hurt!  I'm IV'd, and my fabulous nurse finds me some dinner (I now haven't had anything to eat or drink in 24 hours)

I decide to hold off on my epi for a bit.  I really want to walk the halls a bit first.  Ultimately, that doesn't work out.  By 9pm, I absolutely cannot take the pain anymore and am ready for the epidural. A quick exam shows that I'm 6cm (holy crap, I made it to 6 without my epi!?) and the anesthesiologist is summoned.  The fentanyl they gave me was FABULOUS and getting the epi was totally painless.  So far so good!

I slept on and off for a few hours but am too excited for any really good sleep.  Tom and I spent several hours talking about how excited we are to meet him, and what he'll be like, and who shares his birthday (Cicero - Tom couldn't BE more excited).  We finally nodded off around 1:30, but woke up at 3 for a quick internal.  8cm!  I can't believe my body's actually doing this on its own!  Topped off my own epi because I thought I might be feeling something.

5am brought another exam (9cm!) and the doctor decided to break my water.  Topped off my epi again (I love that glowy green little button) and I'm now sitting straight up (yay!  I'm beyond sick of lying down on my side), hoping gravity does its thing and brings that head down the rest of the way.  He's stubborn, this one.

7:30am and I was ready to roll.  10cm/100%/let's have a baby!  The funny thing was, I really didn't feel all that much pressure, and certainly no pain.  I figured I'd be pushing for days.  Instead, 19 minutes of pushing (which amounted to 4, maybe 5 contrax) netted me an amazing little boy at 8:08am.

Welcome to the world, Aidan Thomas!