I woke up at 2:30 am on the morning of June 21st with real contractions. This was my due date! I knew these were real contractions because they felt more like menstrual cramps and were more regular than the Braxton Hicks I had previously experienced. I got out of bed and went into the living room where I started timing my contractions and fiddling on the computer to waste time while I waited for the contractions to become more regular. By 4:30 am I was experiencing contractions that were about 4-5 minutes apart. I called my mom to find out if she thought I should head to the hospital and she said that we should. I woke Chadd up and my mom met us at our house and we all headed to the hospital at about 5:30 am. By the time we were checked in at triage, some of my contractions had slowed down. When the nurse checked me, I was only 1cm dilated but she hooked me up to a machine anyway to monitor my contractions for about a half hour. No progress had been made but she knew I didn't live very close to the hospital so she sent me to walk around the hospital for two hours and then told me to come back to triage and we would check my dilation again. It was still pretty early in the morning before the sweltering heat hit so we all decided to walk around the lake in front of the hospital. By the time we returned to triage, I was still only 1cm so they sent me home and told me to go to my OB appt later that day.
After eating some Chicken and Gnocci soup that my mom bought me from Olive Garden, visiting with she and Kourtney for a bit, and bouncing on the exercise ball my sister let me borrow, it was finally time to go to my OB appointment at 3:30pm. Chadd took me to my appointment and they first did an ultrasound as well as a non-stress test to measure my contractions. When Dr. D'heureux checked my dilation, she said I was three to four centimeters dilated. I asked if I could go to the hospital and she said to wait until my contractions were closer to 2-3 minutes apart. She also advised me to take a long walk that night and said that she predicted I'd be back at the hospital later that evening or early the next morning. By 7pm that evening, I started having some contractions that were 1-2 minutes apart and some that were 2-3 minutes apart. They also were increasingly more painful. I told Chadd we needed to leave right away. I was so worried that we wouldn't make it to the hospital that I wouldn't even let him go to a drive thru to get himself dinner on the way. When we finally got to the hospital, I had to wait in triage for an hour and a half. I was pretty embarrassed but the pain had gotten so awful that I was crying in front of everyone in the waiting room. My back hurt so bad and my mom asked for a pillow and was told "pillows are for patients." I didn't understand that as I was about to be a patient. I also didn't understand why I was in obvious pain and it took so long for them to take me to the back. It seemed that they were going in order of who came in first rather than in order of pain level. The triage unit was my only complaint about Winnie Palmer.
Once I was taken back, the nurse checked my dilation and then hooked me up to the machine and said that they would be measuring my contractions for an hour or so. She did not tell me what my dilation was at the time but I assumed I wasn't dilated enough since they wanted to monitor me. The contractions were still really painful but were sporadic and the stretcher they put you on couldn't have been more uncomfortable. The nurse saw the pain I was in and gave me some morphine. This helped a little bit but when asked about my pain level, I told her it was a 7. She wanted to argue with me about that. She said "Oh come on, that's only one below what you said before." Did she not want me to tell the truth about my pain level? My mom and I both didn't really appreciate her snarkiness. One hour turned into several hours probably due to the pain I was experiencing. Only one person was allowed back there with me at a time and my mom and Chadd switched off during that time so that he could get some dinner. When the nurse came back in to check my dilation, she gave me a funny look that I wasn't sure how to read. She asked me "Did you feel your water break?" I told her that I felt a slow trickle a few times but I just associated that as discharge from all of the dilation checks I had that day. She said she was pretty sure my water had broken because she could smell the amniotic fluid when she lifted the blanket to check my dilation. Chadd and I were thrilled with this news because I was worried I wasn't going to be dilated enough and they were going to try and send me home again. She did the check and sure enough, my water had broken, I was 5cm dilated, and she said they would have me in a room in the next fifteen minutes or so. I begged to have an epidural and she said they couldn't do it in triage but would do it immediately when I got to my room.
At about 2:30am, I was finally in my labor and delivery room and within five minutes of being there, the anesthesiologist came in to give me the epidural. I wasn't nervous about the epidural at all; I just wanted the pain from the contractions to go away. Almost immediately after the epidural was given, my pain ceased. At that point I had already been up about 24 hours and everyone was telling me I should get some rest while I could. However, I couldn't believe the relief I felt from the epidural. My adrenaline was going so strong because of that and also the anticipation of meeting my baby girl. Even though I hadn't slept for 24 hours, I knew I wouldn't be able to nap before I began pushing. I rested my eyes for a while and tried but it just did not happen. I was allowed to have three people in my labor room and so it was Chadd, my mom, and his mom, Kim. Around 8:00am that morning is when they checked my dilation and said I was 10cm. Kim and I rushed to do our makeup real quick as we thought Allie would be here fast. I began pushing at around 9:30 but the nurses ended up having to give me Pitocin because my contractions were still irregular. About an hour into pushing, we had to take a break because I had three close contractions in a row and it made Allie's heartrate drop into the 80's. That was terrifying as the nurses rushed to put oxygen on my face. About 11:45am is when I began pushing again. This time they started off with keeping the Pitocin really low as they didn't want to cause any more distress. I pushed for hours upon hours and the nurses kept rotating me in all sorts of positions (back, both sides, even all fours). They also involved this little peanut shaped pillow. Throughout all of this, I vomited quite a few times and my mom laughed because I was like "There goes another $30 dollars." I remembered that the hospital charged Chadd for the container he vomited in when he had an ACL surgery. Anyway, they ended up gradually increasing the Pitocin again throughout the hours of pushing but she was still not progressing through the birth canal. The nurses could see her head and told me she was a blondie. The doctor on call had a C-section he needed to attend to but since my labor was not progressing, he called another doctor from the practice to help with my delivery.
When Dr. Quirino showed up, the nurses caught her up to speed on what had been going on. She immediately did an ultrasound to see what was going on and found out that Allie was sunny side up. She gave me two options. She said she could go ahead and try and turn her and then I could try to push her out for three more contractions. If that did not work, we would go into an emergency C-section. My other option was to just stop labor and schedule a C-section but we could have to wait for hours for a room to open up. She said vacuuming and forceps would not be an option because Allie was still behind the pubic bone. I was fine with that as I would prefer a C-section over those two routes. I was exhausted but wanted to just do what was best for Allie and I didn't want her to be in anymore distress. Everyone told me how far I had come already and that it wouldn't hurt to just try and see if we could turn her and avoid the C-section route. Plus, if it didn't work then I would be able to get the C-section sooner rather than later. As soon as the doctor reached up there to turn her, I experienced immediate regret. Even with an epidural, I have never felt so much pain in my life. I was screaming uncontrollably and crying. Chadd said he almost started to cry when he could see the pain that I was in. My mom was at my bedside praying for us. After the doctor had turned her, she did another ultrasound to check her position. Sure enough, Allie had turned right back to sunny side up. The next few minutes felt like a blur. The emergency team rushed in to get me prepped for surgery. One person was washing my arms and legs and another person even handed me a toothbrush to brush my teeth. I thought that was strange but I didn't ask any questions. At that point, I just wanted my precious baby girl out! The anesthesiologist gave me more medicine and the pressure I had been feeling immediately went away. The team sent Chadd to get dressed in his scrubs and I said goodbye to our mothers before they wheeled me out of the room.
On the way to the room and once in the room, the anesthesiologist could tell how upset I was. The tears were still streaming down my face. He gave me words of encouragement and definitely helped ease my fears. They got started on my surgery and Chadd joined me in the room. I remember the scent of a burning smell and asked what it was. They said they were cauterizing my skin to prevent infection. I will never forget the relief I felt once I heard my sweet baby girl crying. She was born at 3:12pm and was 7.5 lbs and 20.75 inches. They called Chadd over to meet her and watch her get her footprints done but I obviously couldn't move as they were closing me back up. I wish they would have shown her to me over the sheet but they didn't. It felt like forever before I actually got to hold her. Once she was finally in my arms, I couldn't believe the love that I felt for her. It's exactly as people say, "love at first sight." She was even more beautiful than I had imagined. It was a moment I've been dreaming about my entire life. We got a few pictures taken together and then they took her to get cleaned up. The nurses brought her back to me once I was in recovery and I got to feed her for the first time. She immediately latched and I was shocked that it wasn't painful at all. I was kind of like "That's it? This is easy!" After a few hours in recovery, we were wheeled up to my room where we were joined by our parents. They got to see Allie for a little bit but then went home to get some rest as it had been a long couple of days.
We ended up staying in the hospital for 3 more nights and were not discharged until Saturday afternoon. Even though I am not a fan of hospitals, I actually liked being there because all of the nurses were wonderful, knowledgeable, and so helpful with any questions I had regarding Allie and/or my recovery. Not to mention, we had what we were told was one of the nicest views in the hospital-it overlooked both lakes outside. Our visitors included Mom, Dad, Kim, Mark, Melissa, Nanny, Daisy, Sean, Cameron, Kourtney, Christian, Lindsey, Jamie, Justin, Katie, Robin, and Leyton. Although my labor experience was interesting to say the least, we are so fortunate to have a beautiful, healthy, mostly easy-going baby girl! I was a little worried about how comfortable Chadd was going to be with her as newborns have always made him nervous but he's a pro. It was love at first sight for him too and it just melts my heart to see what an amazing daddy he is. I'm so in love with our little family and I thank God daily for all of our blessings!
After eating some Chicken and Gnocci soup that my mom bought me from Olive Garden, visiting with she and Kourtney for a bit, and bouncing on the exercise ball my sister let me borrow, it was finally time to go to my OB appointment at 3:30pm. Chadd took me to my appointment and they first did an ultrasound as well as a non-stress test to measure my contractions. When Dr. D'heureux checked my dilation, she said I was three to four centimeters dilated. I asked if I could go to the hospital and she said to wait until my contractions were closer to 2-3 minutes apart. She also advised me to take a long walk that night and said that she predicted I'd be back at the hospital later that evening or early the next morning. By 7pm that evening, I started having some contractions that were 1-2 minutes apart and some that were 2-3 minutes apart. They also were increasingly more painful. I told Chadd we needed to leave right away. I was so worried that we wouldn't make it to the hospital that I wouldn't even let him go to a drive thru to get himself dinner on the way. When we finally got to the hospital, I had to wait in triage for an hour and a half. I was pretty embarrassed but the pain had gotten so awful that I was crying in front of everyone in the waiting room. My back hurt so bad and my mom asked for a pillow and was told "pillows are for patients." I didn't understand that as I was about to be a patient. I also didn't understand why I was in obvious pain and it took so long for them to take me to the back. It seemed that they were going in order of who came in first rather than in order of pain level. The triage unit was my only complaint about Winnie Palmer.
Once I was taken back, the nurse checked my dilation and then hooked me up to the machine and said that they would be measuring my contractions for an hour or so. She did not tell me what my dilation was at the time but I assumed I wasn't dilated enough since they wanted to monitor me. The contractions were still really painful but were sporadic and the stretcher they put you on couldn't have been more uncomfortable. The nurse saw the pain I was in and gave me some morphine. This helped a little bit but when asked about my pain level, I told her it was a 7. She wanted to argue with me about that. She said "Oh come on, that's only one below what you said before." Did she not want me to tell the truth about my pain level? My mom and I both didn't really appreciate her snarkiness. One hour turned into several hours probably due to the pain I was experiencing. Only one person was allowed back there with me at a time and my mom and Chadd switched off during that time so that he could get some dinner. When the nurse came back in to check my dilation, she gave me a funny look that I wasn't sure how to read. She asked me "Did you feel your water break?" I told her that I felt a slow trickle a few times but I just associated that as discharge from all of the dilation checks I had that day. She said she was pretty sure my water had broken because she could smell the amniotic fluid when she lifted the blanket to check my dilation. Chadd and I were thrilled with this news because I was worried I wasn't going to be dilated enough and they were going to try and send me home again. She did the check and sure enough, my water had broken, I was 5cm dilated, and she said they would have me in a room in the next fifteen minutes or so. I begged to have an epidural and she said they couldn't do it in triage but would do it immediately when I got to my room.
At about 2:30am, I was finally in my labor and delivery room and within five minutes of being there, the anesthesiologist came in to give me the epidural. I wasn't nervous about the epidural at all; I just wanted the pain from the contractions to go away. Almost immediately after the epidural was given, my pain ceased. At that point I had already been up about 24 hours and everyone was telling me I should get some rest while I could. However, I couldn't believe the relief I felt from the epidural. My adrenaline was going so strong because of that and also the anticipation of meeting my baby girl. Even though I hadn't slept for 24 hours, I knew I wouldn't be able to nap before I began pushing. I rested my eyes for a while and tried but it just did not happen. I was allowed to have three people in my labor room and so it was Chadd, my mom, and his mom, Kim. Around 8:00am that morning is when they checked my dilation and said I was 10cm. Kim and I rushed to do our makeup real quick as we thought Allie would be here fast. I began pushing at around 9:30 but the nurses ended up having to give me Pitocin because my contractions were still irregular. About an hour into pushing, we had to take a break because I had three close contractions in a row and it made Allie's heartrate drop into the 80's. That was terrifying as the nurses rushed to put oxygen on my face. About 11:45am is when I began pushing again. This time they started off with keeping the Pitocin really low as they didn't want to cause any more distress. I pushed for hours upon hours and the nurses kept rotating me in all sorts of positions (back, both sides, even all fours). They also involved this little peanut shaped pillow. Throughout all of this, I vomited quite a few times and my mom laughed because I was like "There goes another $30 dollars." I remembered that the hospital charged Chadd for the container he vomited in when he had an ACL surgery. Anyway, they ended up gradually increasing the Pitocin again throughout the hours of pushing but she was still not progressing through the birth canal. The nurses could see her head and told me she was a blondie. The doctor on call had a C-section he needed to attend to but since my labor was not progressing, he called another doctor from the practice to help with my delivery.
When Dr. Quirino showed up, the nurses caught her up to speed on what had been going on. She immediately did an ultrasound to see what was going on and found out that Allie was sunny side up. She gave me two options. She said she could go ahead and try and turn her and then I could try to push her out for three more contractions. If that did not work, we would go into an emergency C-section. My other option was to just stop labor and schedule a C-section but we could have to wait for hours for a room to open up. She said vacuuming and forceps would not be an option because Allie was still behind the pubic bone. I was fine with that as I would prefer a C-section over those two routes. I was exhausted but wanted to just do what was best for Allie and I didn't want her to be in anymore distress. Everyone told me how far I had come already and that it wouldn't hurt to just try and see if we could turn her and avoid the C-section route. Plus, if it didn't work then I would be able to get the C-section sooner rather than later. As soon as the doctor reached up there to turn her, I experienced immediate regret. Even with an epidural, I have never felt so much pain in my life. I was screaming uncontrollably and crying. Chadd said he almost started to cry when he could see the pain that I was in. My mom was at my bedside praying for us. After the doctor had turned her, she did another ultrasound to check her position. Sure enough, Allie had turned right back to sunny side up. The next few minutes felt like a blur. The emergency team rushed in to get me prepped for surgery. One person was washing my arms and legs and another person even handed me a toothbrush to brush my teeth. I thought that was strange but I didn't ask any questions. At that point, I just wanted my precious baby girl out! The anesthesiologist gave me more medicine and the pressure I had been feeling immediately went away. The team sent Chadd to get dressed in his scrubs and I said goodbye to our mothers before they wheeled me out of the room.
On the way to the room and once in the room, the anesthesiologist could tell how upset I was. The tears were still streaming down my face. He gave me words of encouragement and definitely helped ease my fears. They got started on my surgery and Chadd joined me in the room. I remember the scent of a burning smell and asked what it was. They said they were cauterizing my skin to prevent infection. I will never forget the relief I felt once I heard my sweet baby girl crying. She was born at 3:12pm and was 7.5 lbs and 20.75 inches. They called Chadd over to meet her and watch her get her footprints done but I obviously couldn't move as they were closing me back up. I wish they would have shown her to me over the sheet but they didn't. It felt like forever before I actually got to hold her. Once she was finally in my arms, I couldn't believe the love that I felt for her. It's exactly as people say, "love at first sight." She was even more beautiful than I had imagined. It was a moment I've been dreaming about my entire life. We got a few pictures taken together and then they took her to get cleaned up. The nurses brought her back to me once I was in recovery and I got to feed her for the first time. She immediately latched and I was shocked that it wasn't painful at all. I was kind of like "That's it? This is easy!" After a few hours in recovery, we were wheeled up to my room where we were joined by our parents. They got to see Allie for a little bit but then went home to get some rest as it had been a long couple of days.
We ended up staying in the hospital for 3 more nights and were not discharged until Saturday afternoon. Even though I am not a fan of hospitals, I actually liked being there because all of the nurses were wonderful, knowledgeable, and so helpful with any questions I had regarding Allie and/or my recovery. Not to mention, we had what we were told was one of the nicest views in the hospital-it overlooked both lakes outside. Our visitors included Mom, Dad, Kim, Mark, Melissa, Nanny, Daisy, Sean, Cameron, Kourtney, Christian, Lindsey, Jamie, Justin, Katie, Robin, and Leyton. Although my labor experience was interesting to say the least, we are so fortunate to have a beautiful, healthy, mostly easy-going baby girl! I was a little worried about how comfortable Chadd was going to be with her as newborns have always made him nervous but he's a pro. It was love at first sight for him too and it just melts my heart to see what an amazing daddy he is. I'm so in love with our little family and I thank God daily for all of our blessings!
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