Letters from Pemberley

After my check-up on Monday where I was just 3 cm dilated, I took the kids on a good, long walk/bike ride down to the grocery store.  We just managed an hour and a half before April showers sent us inside.  I felt sore that night, but I had really psyched myself out of going into labor this week.  So besides popping in a load of diapers in the washer, I didn’t do my normal what-if-I-go-into-labor-tonight cleaning up routine.  Of course. 

I woke up at 3:30 am because Tommy had wet his pajamas and changed into clothes and was leaving his bedroom to start his day bright and early.  As I shuffled him into the bathroom, I noticed I was having real contractions.  As I got him back into his room, I noticed they were 3 minutes apart.  I decided not to make him completely change back into pjs and told him he might be going over to Miss Jenny’s.  Of course, this meant that he could not go back to sleep for excitement.  I told Derek I was in labor, and he asked drowsily if I wanted him to get up.  The obvious answer (YES) being so obvious, I told him it was up to him.  He turned over and went back to sleep.  I bustled around the house, getting laundry and stuff together, and realized that my contractions really were consistently 3 minutes apart and about a minute long.  I called to Derek that he needed to get up, after all, to time me and help me get ready because we were going to have to get going.  As I packed for the hospital and got in the shower, I kept calling out to him when another one started, and this woke up Elizabeth around 4.  We decided that since she was going to be going in the car in a little bit, anyway, we’d just let her stay up.  So the kids played and had a snack while we finished getting ready.  We dropped them off at Sam and Jenny’s around 5 am, and my contractions were getting strong enough that I really wished we’d moved faster and were already at the hospital.

At the hospital, we got checked in and all by about 5:30.  I told the nurse I had short labors and that I wanted an epidural asap.  She checked and saw that I was a couple centimeters more dilated, but my contractions got more irregular once we had me hooked up to the moniter.  Everyone certainly took their time getting things going (maybe they didn’t really believe my 7 and 6 hour labors?), and I didn’t get my epidural until 6:45 or so, at which point the contractions were pretty intense.  Now, I have had wonderful experiences with my previous two epidurals, even taking a nap during labor with Elizabeth, but this just managed to bring the pain down temporarily from about an 8 to a 5.  He said it would take a little while to take full effect, but unfortunately, everything went so fast from there that there wasn’t time.  I hung out, my contractions a lot closer together, and Dr. Hovick came in about 7:15 to see me.  Even though I’d only been on the antibiotics for strep B for a bit over an hour, he said he was going to break my water to get things moving.  Now, I was pretty much constantly contracting with my pain level rising instead of falling like it was supposed to, but I was so nauseated that I didn’t have the energy to enter into a discussion of my options.  At 7:22, I was 8 cm dilated, and he broke my water as he checked me.  Within about a minute, I was definitely in transition and crying with the pain, which the epidural wasn’t helping at all.  While Dr. Hovick rushed out to record something on my chart, the nurses started taking the end off the bed and told me I was going to be able to push.  I was so confused because last I’d heard, I was only 8 cm, I was suddenly in so much pain that I was trying to breathe and throw up simultaneously, and I hadn’t been in labor that long.

They got Dr. Hovick back in and set up and coaxed me out of my fetal position.  Instead of being up holding my hand by my head, Derek had to hold one of my legs up because there wasn’t time to put up the stirrups.  Since my contractions were coming without a break, I just started pushing once, twice, and the third time, out she came!  There was this huge whoosh of fluids that spattered everyone because she’d dropped so quickly when he broke my water that it hadn’t all come out.  Dr. Hovick still had his scissors in his hand from clipping me when I started to tear during the first push, so he had to drop the scissors to just barely catch the baby.  Derek said, “Oh Em, it’s a girl!” and I immediately felt a lot better.  It was 7:36.

Susanna’s umbilical cord was quite short, so they were only able to get her up to my stomach while Dr. Hovick sewed me up and the nurses cleaned her off.  Derek cut the cord, to his chagrin (such things gross him out).  Susanna was so much more purple than the other two had been because she’d come so fast she didn’t have time to clear out her lungs and cry on the way out.  I didn’t hear this, but Derek noticed Dr. Hovick turn to the nurse and say, matter-of-factly, “You know, I’ve never dropped a baby, but that was a really close call.”  After he left, the nurses told me they’d never seen him move so fast!

The less said about the hospital, the better.  The staff was really nice, and that counts for a lot.  They’re very old-school there, in keeping with the facilities.  Prentice Women’s Hospital this was not.  Most of the rooms at least had a “sleep chair” for the dads to sleep in, but our room only had a semi-recliner that Derek compared in comfort and recline ability to an airplane seat.  I sent him home the second night.  We had to stay a full 48 hours because I hadn’t had a full course of antibiotics for the Step B, so Susanna had to be under observation just in case.  Susanna had some high blood sugar the first day and had a couple more blood tests to make sure her levels were coming down okay, and she checked out fine.   Her eating was poor at first because she still had so much goop in her that hadn’t been pushed out during delivery (usually multiple pushes squeeze the baby and clear out the tummy and lungs).  And she was so tired that she didn’t eat at all the first 12 hours, then spent the next 8 hours wanting to eat every 45 minutes.  That was, of course, through the first night.  We finally got out of there Thursday morning and have enjoyed being more comfortable here at home.  I’m hoping to get some more sleep here, though we had to make sure she ate every 3 hours last night because she has some jaundice.

So yep, this labor really was just four hours start to finish.  I’ve gone from 7 hours with 25 minutes of pushing (Tommy) to 6 hours with 12 minutes of pushing (Elizabeth) to 4 hours with 2 minutes of pushing (Susanna).  I like the trend, but if I get much shorter, I’m afraid there won’t even be a doctor to nearly drop the baby next time!