Around 0400 on Thursday, October 7th, I went to the bathroom to pee and I felt a “pop.” I was thinking, “What was that?” I remembered my friend telling me that she felt a popping sensation when her water broke, so I placed a pantyliner onto my underwear and lied down for about five minutes. I went back to the bathroom and saw that I soaked through the pad. At that moment I knew it was my water. A panicked feeling came over me at first as I thought about going through the motions of labor and pushing. Once I reassured myself that everything will be alright, I woke up Joseph and my mom to get ready for the hospital.
As I was getting ready, I found myself thinking about labor. I wondered how long my labor will be, if I would have a hard time pushing, or if I would succumb to getting an epidural. Joseph was telling me to hurry since I was taking my time straightening my hair and putting on makeup (I laugh when I think about that now). I guess I wanted to look presentable? When I was done getting ready I took a quick look at my hospital bag to make sure I had everything that I needed and stuck a few magazines in my bag to take with me.
Finally around 0445, we all got into the car. There was a lot of excitement and nervousness (mainly me) during the drive. Since it was so early, there was no traffic which is a good thing since the hospital I was delivering at is about a 45 minute drive. About ten minutes into the journey to the hospital, I started to feel contractions that were five minutes apart and lasting a minute long. They weren’t too painful at that time, but I could feel them becoming stronger.
We arrived at the hospital at around 0530. I checked in at the front and went straight to triage. I changed into the hospital gown and lied in the bed waiting for the nurse to come and check. She said, “There’s no doubt that your water broke.” She then checked for cervical dilation and effacement, which hurt a bit. At my last appointment (seven days before, my 38th week appointment was supposed to be the next day), I was 4cm dilated and 80% effaced. When the nurse checked me, I was at 5-6cm and 90% effaced.
I was admitted to L&D to wait out my labor. The contractions were still bearable, but were starting to become painful. The nurse brought me some water and cranberry juice to drink. Joseph and my mom were keeping me company and distracted me from my contractions. My contractions started coming every two minutes, then every minute lasting about a minute and a half long. At this point, I was becoming tense and anxious. I was in a lot of pain and a lot of it was concentrated on my lower back. On top of that, I began shivering. The whole room just felt so chilly and no matter how many blankets I wrapped around myself, I still found myself shivering. The RN said that I was in the transition stage (8-10cm), hence the shivering because of all the hormones.
My OB came in around 0845 and asked how I was doing and complimented Travis saying that, “He’s such a considerate baby! He waited till the morning to come out.” She asked if I wanted the epidural and at that point I was in so much pain that I said, “Yes.” She left to go get the anesthesiologist. The anesthesiologist came to place the epidural. He kept saying, “Stay still.” It was so difficult trying to stay still while getting the catheter inserted since I was having a contraction when the anesthesiologist was putting it in! To make matters worse, my anesthesiologist wanted to make small talk (before putting my epidural) and asked me if I was one of the RNs that worked upstairs at the med-surg unit!
After five minutes of getting the epidural, my OB came in and did a cervix check and I was already 9cm! When I found out I was at 9cm, I felt a bit disappointed at myself for succumbing to the epidural. To be honest, I was kind of leaning towards a natural delivery, but kept an open mind towards the epidural. If I would have known that I was at 9cm prior to getting the epidural, I would not have gotten it anymore. At this point, I’ve only been in labor for about 3.5 hours. My OB was so surprised and said, “I’ll see you in about an hour or less.” Anyhow, with the epidural I was able to rest a bit and take a little nap before I had to push. I could still feel my legs, but they felt heavy.
Around 1000, my nurse came in and did a cervix check and I was at 10cm. She didn’t bother putting a foley catheter and just decided to straight cath (thank goodness she didn’t put a foley). Around 1015 I started pushing. Even with the epidural, I still felt my contractions (without pain though) and the pressure so I was able to push with my contractions with minimal coaching. At 1054, Travis Anthony came into the world, weighing 6lbs 3oz and 19 inches long. When they placed him in my arms I could not help, but start crying because I was just so overwhelmed and filled with joy
