Finally after waiting around, twiddling my thumbs, it was time to head to the hospital!
Once we arrived there, things started moving pretty quickly (in the beginning). They had me get changed and into the bed right away and then worked on getting all of my information. Once they had inputted all my demographic information and insurance info, they put the IV line in and got me hooked up to the heart monitor for the baby. The IV is pretty painless but it was different. I’d never had one before and what they do, is take a large needle with a hole in it and put it into your vein so that they can hook the medicine drip up to it. It stung for about 2 minutes but eventually it stopped and I couldn’t feel it other than the contraption being on my hand.
Around 8 o’clock PM in they inserted the Cervidil and at that point I wasn’t allowed to get up and walk around for two hours. No big deal, right!? Well, of course when you’re told you can’t get up and pee, that’s all you can think to do. Thankfully I had my iPad and there was some good TV on so I was able to distract myself. Plus, I had plenty to talk about with Seamus. We were both very excited!
Around 10:30 they gave me some benadryl to help me sleep but I did not sleep. I was hooked up too the infant heart monitor and Emmett was being a little punk, every time I’d roll over they’d lose his heart beat and the nurse would have to come in and find it again. This led to me trying to lay in one spot and doze off, it didn’t happen! Seamus had to sleep in a reclining chair but I think he got more sleep than I did. Around 8 AM I finally started feeling exhausted and was able to sleep for a short time, just as the nurses were beginning to make their morning rounds. Ugh! I was starting out (almost) motherhood on a depleted sleep bank.
As the morning wore on they started my Pitocin (oxytocin injection) drip, which helps speed up contractions which will hopefully lead to the baby being delivered. They literally start you out with one drip for the first 45 min to an hour and then slowly increase it every hour until you’re at the max amount. This isn’t a quick transition, it took from 8 AM until just before 7 PM before I hit my max.
They also decided to switch from external baby monitoring to internal because they were having such a hard time keeping Emmett’s heart beat on the speaker. This didn’t mean that anything was wrong with Emmett, it was more likely that he just kept moving around. If you are interested in the difference between external and internal fetal monitoring, please read this article. I actually preferred the internal monitoring because it kept track of E’s heart rate on a more steady basis.
Throughout this time the contractions started getting worse and worse but weren’t quite bad enough to cause me to need the epidural yet. They pulled out the birth ball, which is essentially and exercise ball, for me to sit on and hopefully assist in moving Emmett down the birth canal. I felt very fortunate to have Seamus there with me, he was so attentive. Every time a contraction would hit, he would sit there and put pressure on my lower back (like they taught us in birthing class), which helped the pain tremendously.
During the time while I was in Labor and Delivery, every time the nurse would enter the room she would ask my pain scale. Well since I had never had a baby before, I didn’t really have anything to base my pain on so I was telling her I was a level 7 (out of 10) early on, but I very quickly realized that what I had been feeling was more like a 4.
When I finally did reach pain that was definitely at the 7 level, I asked for my epidural.
To Be Continued…