I had a doctor's appointment on Thursday (2 days before Aubrey's arrival). I didn't see my regular doctor but the one I did see estimated that she was already 8 1/2 pounds and I was only dialated to 2 cm, and I still had two weeks to go. So I decided to schedule to be induced on the following Saturday (a week "early"). And I left feeling happy we could plan on seeing her then and sincerely hoping she wouldn't end up being 9 pounds!
On Friday the girls and I went with Katherine to a water park. We played for a long time and I went down the water slide with Isis at least 4 of 12 times she went down. Perhaps this contributed to the onset of labor the next morning...
10:00am- We got up and headed up to the new house to do some work on it. I had some minor contractions on the way up (a 40 minute drive) and growing ones as I cleaned bathrooms, moped the floor, and helped Jeremy hang fans. They weren't like the contractions I had with the other two girls so I just took a break every fifteen minutes or so for about a minute. The last two times they were crazy intense all over my belly (which I realized later were due to having them induced); these were "just" little cramps in my lower abdomen. We finished up and stoped for dinner on the way home.
4:30pm- Now they were getting a little stronger and more frequent and I was becoming slightly concerned. We arrived home and I decided that, yeah, maybe we should start timing them.
5:30pm-Okay, so they were 4-5 minutes apart and an intense minute long... but I didn't want to hang out in the hospital too long. So for a whole
minute we decided we would still go to the adult session of stake conference (a church meeting) ... and then my water broke. We were so glad Katherine was with us; we left the girls with her and headed to the hospital.
6:10pm-We got there and I was getting a little anxious when it took the nurse a while to come to check us in.
6:18pm-I was strapped to monitors and was told I was dialated to 7cm. I emphatically said that I definitely wanted an epidural. I listened to the nurse call my doctor and the anesthesiologist telling them to come immediately. I think that's the last coherent thing I heard her say.
6:35pm- Suddenly the contractions were right on top of each other, I could hardly get a breath in, and I started to FREAK OUT. I realized I would NOT be getting that epidural and I really started to panic. It sounds silly to say it after I've had two kids, but I was so scared. I wasn't mentally prepared to have my baby this fast and med-free. I honestly have not felt that kind of fear before. Oh yeah, and it HURT!!! I think I wrote that night that it felt like I was being drawn and quartered. Ripped in half. During this we found out I'm a screamer. Yep, didn't think I was... but I am. (Remembering it now makes me embarassed and laugh akwardly.) And I probably scared and scarred Jeremy forever. Some where amid the chaos in my head I heard him tell the nurse "I've never seen her like this." The nurse and Jeremy kept telling my to breathe; that was making angry because obviously if I was screaming I was breathing. I just wanted someone to make it stop hurting. I kept saying (yelling) "Help! Help!" "I can't do this!"
The nurse checked and I was at 10cm. She told me to "just hold on" "calm down" "don't push". It seemed like every single thing she said made me
so angry. I didn't have a choice; my body was doing the pushing and I couldn't just stop. My body's being ripped apart and I'm supposed to calm down?? I just really wanted her to stop talking. And then she came back around and said "Oh! Okay, push."
6:50pm- That was it. One push and there was Aubrey!! I was in awe that she arrived so fast and that I had just survived the whole oredal. And I actually got to hold her for a minute before they cleaned her up.
(About 15 minutes later the doctor actually showed up. I was told "next time" that I need to come to the hospital as soon as I start having contractions...:))
Holy crazy experience. I wrote that day that I never wanted to do it that way again. In retrospect, however, if I was mentally prepared to have a baby without an epidural and I KNEW that it would be hard, painful work for
only 20 minutes...then I would opt to do it again. It's better than spending all day in the hospital waiting for something to happen. Being mentally prepared for the experience would make a world of difference. (I really can't convey how truly scared I was at the time.)
So, there's all the TMI of Aubrey's birth. :) But since it was so different from the first two and quite a significant event for me, I had to share and you chose to read. :)
(PS- the doctor was WAY off... she was only 6.8lbs. Maybe it's hard to estimate with short people...)
