Okay, so this is for Theresa. It may contain graphic details. Reader discretion advised.
On Sunday morning I started having cramps. I thought to myself, "great, another side affect of pregnancy". They were not so bad as to keep us from our plans, mass at 7:30, home to rest, shopping and then off to the in-laws for Grace's 12 birthday party.
We got home, had dinner and were finishing up an episode of Babylon 5 at about 7 pm when I realized the cramps were getting very regular. I took out my phone and starting timing them. They were 3-4 minutes apart. We called my doctor's office and packed our bags and got to the hospital about 8 pm.
They put us in a triage room. Duck Dynasty was on the TV so we watched that as we waited... and waited... and waited. Someone came in to verify my information as if I had not preregistered on-line and confirmed the information over the phone. And we waited and waited and waited some more.
Finally someone came in to check and see if my water had broken (it had not) and to verify that I was in labor (I was). I was at 4 cm. By this point those "cramps" were getting very painful. I was starting to really consider an epidural. By 10 pm when we finally got moved to Labor and Delivery we had asked for an epidural because I was screaming/crying though the contractions.
I got the epidural at about 10:30 or 11 and it was heaven! I was now at 5 cm.
Stephen tried to set up the DVD player but could not get it to work. We found an episode of The Big Bang Theory on and pretty soon Stephen was asleep. At midnight I turned off the TV.
The nurse came in every hour or so to turn me to my other side, check progress or do other procedures, but I sleep pretty soundly from 1 until 3:15 when the nurse and some doctor I had never met came in. He broke my water and after that I started feeling the contractions again. I still rested but could not quite sleep. I was at 8 cm at that time.
At 4 am I was back down to 7 cm (without the bag of waters pushing, you can go backwards), so the nurse elevated one leg and by 5 am I was at 9 1/2 cm.
The nurse explained how I was to push and since my contractions were so close together she did not make me push on each one, but once we made some progress she called the doctor. It was a very weird sensation feeling his head coming out.
I will admit that I got frustrated with the pushing. Every time they said "You're doing great" I felt I was not pushing as hard as I could, and every time they said "push harder", I was already pushing with all my might. Also, the nurse was counting to 10 for each push, but sometimes she did not start counting until after I had been pushing for a few seconds.
The doctor got there and he was born. Apparently I had a lot of amniotic fluid.
But the thing is, Seph did not cry.
I know, he takes after his mother.
I wasn't too worried until they called in the NICU people. Very quickly there were four or five people gathered around the warming bed in the corner. They kept saying "he's pink" so he must have taken a breathe but he did not cry at first. When he finally cried it sounded more like a kitten crying than a baby.
Stephen stayed by my side during this as I delivered the placenta. According to the doctor the umbilical cord was very long.
That's about it. I'm sure I'm forgetting something...
