On Saturday morning, I woke up around 2 o'clock in the morning with mild contractions. After about an hour of not being able to fall back asleep, I decide to get up and take a nice warm bath. The bath was very relaxing, but did not stop or slow down the contractions. Alexa wakes up and decides that she wants to take a bath with me. I try to explain to her that my tummy is hurting and that she can't get in the tub with me and she starts crying and throws a little tantrum which wakes Matthew up. He gets up and tries to get Alexa to calm down and finally lays her down in our bed. I tell Matthew about the contractions and he tells me to start timing them and then he goes back to sleep. While in the tub, I time the contractions for 45 minutes and find that they are coming every 4-6 minutes, but only lasting 20-30 seconds long. The pain is getting worse but I am still in denial that I am in labor. I get out of the tub and wake Matthew again. I tell him how close together the contractions are. He groggily tells me to get back in bed and that he'll rub my back. He rubs my back for about 20 seconds before he falls asleep again. He clearly doesn't think this is labor! I stayed in bed until about 5am when the contractions were starting to hurt so bad that I felt like I needed to stand up. I started to get nervous about work; I was supposed to open the pharmacy at 8am. I still wasn't entirely convinced that I was in labor, but I knew that I couldn't go to work with the amount of pain I was in. I decide to take a shower to see if that will help with the pain. I shave my legs, just in case! Since I've never gone into labor naturally before (the previous 2 pregnancies were both inductions), I wasn't even sure when most doctors recommend going to the hospital during early labor. I go downstairs and get on the Internet to see. I find out that I should go to the hospital when I've been having contractions every 5 minutes, lasting 1 minute long, for an hour. Well, I met 2 of the 3 criteria. The contractions still weren't lasting more than 30 seconds. I go back upstairs and wake Matthew up again. This time he tells me to call the OB on-call and just ask what I should do. (Then he goes back to sleep!) I do that and after asking me some questions, she tells me to come to Labor and Delivery to get checked out. Around 6:30am, I call the back-up pharmacist and ask him to report to work. I feel terrible and I worry that this could be a false alarm. I wake Matthew up again and tell him that we are going to the hospital. He finally gets up and starts getting dressed. We start discussing what we are going to do with Alexa, Gavin, and the dog. Our original plan was to be induced on Monday morning. My mom was flying in from Omaha to stay at our house with the kids and dog. Now with the baby possibly coming a little early, we were a little unsure of what to do. Matthew started calling our friends who had offered to watch the kids if I went into labor early. They weren't answering their phones. We assumed they were still sleeping. Matthew took our suitcases out to the car and grabbed the infant car seat, too, while I started packing the kids' bag between contractions. We bundled Alexa and Gavin up, still in their pajamas and decided to take a chance and drive to our friends' house and see if they were home. Luckily when we got there, we saw their car and Matthew was able to wake them up. They were more than happy to watch the kids and they both ran out to help carry them inside. I told Alexa that we were going to go to the hospital to see if the baby wanted to come out of my tummy. She looked at me and said, "But Gamma's not here!" I've been telling her for months that when Grandma comes to our house, we will be going to the hospital so the doctor can help the baby come out. Gavin got a little sad when Matthew left. He doesn't understand what is happening. As we are headed to the hospital, Matthew spots a donut shop. I agree to let him stop since it might be a long day! He comes back happy with some coffee and a bag of donuts. Then we are officially headed to the hospital. When we get there, Matthew offers to drop me off at the front doors, but I decide that it might be good for me to walk a little bit to help progress the labor. Matthew parks in the staff parking garage and then it takes an eternity to walk to the hospital because the contractions start coming even closer together now that I am walking. The pain was so intense that I wasn't able to walk or talk at all when they would occur. I got a contraction while I was crossing the street and was actually frozen in place for about 20 seconds because I couldn't move. I felt really stupid! When we got up to Labor and Delivery, we got signed in and taken back to a triage room to be checked over. I changed into a hospital gown and a nurse came in to do the evaluation. As she was checking my cervix, I was so nervous that there would be no change and she would say, "Oh, you can go home now!" It was taking her a long time and I was very uncomfortable. She asked me if I was dilated at my last OB appointment. I told her that I was a 3+ the previous Wednesday. Then she announced that I was a good 5-6 cm and "Looks like you are having a baby today!" I was so happy to hear that! We get transferred to a delivery room and I meet my delivery nurse, Tiffany. She was really sweet and I liked her instantly. Everything was just going so smooth! She started my IV for fluids and I requested to speak to someone from anesthesia. I have had so much fear and anxiety about getting another epidural after the complications I experienced after having Gavin 2 years ago. I know that I need to decide soon whether or not I want to get an epidural. I really wanted this to be a pleasant, enjoyable experience, but nothing would be worth 2 weeks of a spinal headache. Soon a really nice and understanding CRNA (Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist) came to talk with us. I told her all about the previous experience. Rhonda was very reassuring and in the end basically told me that nobody could ever give me a guarantee that I wouldn't get the spinal headache, but that she would go very slow and take her time. I had a good feeling about her so I said, "Let's do it!" I was extremely nervous and stressed for the procedure, in fact my blood pressure went up so much that it set off the alarms! I was very relieved when she was done and I knew instantly that I was going to be fine. After Rhonda left, a resident came in to check my cervix again. She was just telling me that I had progressed to 7cm when she said, “Whoops! I just broke your water!” The water came gushing out, it seemed like gallons! I yelled for Matthew to save my slippers. I knew from the previous pregnancies that once my water had been broken, it would only be a short time before I was ready to push. Although the epidural had been working wonderfully, I started to notice the contractions getting more painful. Within minutes, I was feeling lots of pain, pressure, and the urge to push. My nurse, Tiffany, got me in the stirrups and started coaching me through the contractions. We were waiting on the OB to get in the room. By the time she arrived, she barely had enough time to get her gown on and get everything set up. At 2:50pm, our baby boy was born! He was crying as soon as he came out. They placed him on my chest and he peed all over me! Daddy got to cut the cord. It was love at first sight! His Apgar scores at birth and at 5 minutes were both 9. Although I had a feeling that this baby was going to be our biggest yet, I was still surprised by how big he was. I was able to hold him for about 15 minutes before Tiffany took him over to get weighed and washed up. Everyone in the room couldn’t believe how big he was- 8 pounds 13.5 ounces and 21.65 inches long! One nurse even made the comment that the newborn diapers probably weren’t going to fit this big boy; he may go straight into size 2 diapers! Matthew and I decided to name him Tysen Zachary.
Seeing Tysen for the first time!
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