I woke up promptly at 4 am on Thursday the 29th moaning. I had had a dream that some kid had kicked me in the stomach and was still in pain when I woke up. After a few minutes, Mike suggested I call the hospital. I wasn’t having contractions, I have having spastic pains and twinges in my back. So I get up and call the hospital. The charge nurse, Keri, told me to get the biggest glass I could find, fill it with water and draw a bath. She said to sit in the bath and sip water for a half an hour. Once I got out, I was to go back to bed and if I was still having the pain to try and time the amount of time that passed between each spasm. After the bath I was just cramping so I called her back and told her I was just going to go to sleep and see if anything progressed and call the doctor at 8. Well, after a bath and Mike coughing, neither of us could really sleep again so we went over to Rite Aid to get him some cough drops and ended up having breakfast at Shari’s. At about 6:40 the spasms were back, so we started timing them. They were any where from 2 – 8 minutes apart and lasted 3-10 seconds. I ended up riding to school with Mike, since it was Thursday he only had History and Math, and he was going to blow off his math class. He went in to his History class and told his instructor that his wife was in the car, having contractions and if he randomly got up and left class it was because something had changed and not because he didn’t like her. She looked and him and told him that he got credit for the day and to leave and take me to the hospital. So we left. Contractions still weren’t close enough together for the hospital though. We went to Albertsons on the way home (about 8 am) and walked all the way through the store, to buy some croissants and 2 Berry Propels. I was having a contraction every other aisle that last the entire aisle. At 8:30 we got home and I called the doctor. They said they would make me an appointment for 8:30. Mike and I decided since we might be having a baby, we should take a shower really quick. This stopped my contractions, but I was still cramping really really bad so we still went to see the doctor. During the exam she concluded that there had been no change in my cervix (in fact, she had changed her mind and said I was only a loose 1cm and 60% effaced). She said that the pains weren’t contractions but to go over the hospital for a couple hours of monitoring to see if anything progressed. We checked in at 9:55 and they put us in the storage room because there was no rooms open. They had one girl that had just checked out; they just needed to clean her room for me. So at 10:30 they finally moved me into 207. The doctor came by to visit at 2 and concluded that there had been no change in my cervix. But baby was having irregular heart tones and I was in a lot of pain so she said I was close enough to my due date and they started the pitocin.
The pitocin stopped my labor. At 7, shift changed and Dr, Brasch made his rounds. This man is awesome – should I have more children, he will be my doctor. He stopped the pitocin so I could eat (I hadn’t eaten anything since Shari’s!) so Mike went running to get me subway and chocolate milkshake. At 9:30 Dr. Brasch came back and explained what was wrong with the heart tones, a lot better than Dr. Cathcart (my regular physician) did. Basically, throughout the day they would just stop picking up her heartbeat for a second or so, and when they picked it up again it would be significantly higher or lower than when it dropped off. So this is great, I am all freaked out because of this. This time, Dr. Brasch started cervadil after concluding that I was 2cm and 70% effaced. He said I was “definitely inducible”. Ha. At about 9:45 I started having fairly decent contractions. Dr. Brasch came back in and said he expected to see babies face by 3am. Then he gave me Demerol for the pain. This was at 10. By 10:30 my contractions were gone. At 6:50 the next morning (we’re up to Friday the 30th) at 6:50 Dr. Brasch stopped by before shift change and broke my water. I was still at 2 and 70. With in 10 minutes I was having contractions that were 90 seconds apart and 45 seconds long. At 7:30 I had nubain for pain. At 9:30 the nurse removed the cervadil (it stays next to youe cervix for 12 hours) and I was 90% effaced and 4 cm, finally at station -1. By 10:30 I was in so much pain that I caved and got the epidural (2 days of on again off again labor is a lot of work!) I slept from 10:30-12:30. At 12 I was 100% effaced, 5.5 cm and still -1 station. The nurse was concerned about babies position so I had an ultrasound to confirm that she was head down. By now, it’s Dr, Ravasia, this really. . .weird lady. . .she came in at 1:15 and started the pitocin again (this worried me). She also said that I was only 4cm. I slept from 1:15-3:15 and woke up wanting to push. I figured I just had to go to the bathroom. I told the nurse that my epi was wearing off and I needed to go to the bathroom. She did a quick exam to find that in the 2 hours I was sleeping I went to 9.5 cm and 0 station. At 4:05 we were at 10cm and I started pushing. Mind you I hadn’t had a redose on my epi. At 5:20 Dr. Ravasia wanted to labor down for awhile to make my pushes more effective. Just so you know, labor down means cutting your drugs off completely. I learned this the next day. At any rate, at 6:10 they did an internal contraction monitor in because they couldn’t even see when I was pushing with the external one. So here I am, no epidural SCREAMING for a c-section and at 7 Dr. Ravasia told me to give it one more half hour of pushing and if I hadn’t made any progress she would do the c-section. At this time I also got the most AMAZING nurse, Sharifa, who just rocked. She was an awesome coach. At about 7:30 she and Keri, the charge nurse I originally spoke to, flipped me on all fours and made me breathe and not push for 2 contractions. Let me tell you, that was the hardest thing I have ever done. But when Dr. Ravasia came 10 minutes later I was actually making progress so she redosed my epidural. You should have seen the change in my demeanor. I went from “I can’t do this, get the doctor, cut me open” to laughing and telling jokes in between contractions. About 5 minutes before I was delievered, Sharifa said it looked like I was going to tear up and called the doctor in. Doctor Ravasia did a ¾ inch episiotomy and in two pushes she was here. . .
