It all started at about 1am. I rolled over in bed (no small feat at 9 months pregnant) and felt a little leakage. The question was....is it just me peeing myself for the 3,000th time since becoming pregnant or was it my water breaking. Then around 3 am I got up to pee and noticed pinkish colored fluid coming out of me. I also noticed my normal Braxton Hicks contractions were morphing into something much more uncomfortable. I went back to the bedroom and asked Travis if he was ready for his middle of the night labor journey to start. Shortly after we were both up and getting ready to head to L&D. I called my sister and she said she was on her way.
About 40 minutes later we were on our way out the door. When we were taken to a room they hooked me up to the contraction and baby heart rate monitor. My contractions were about 5 minutes apart. The nurse also checked dilation (I was at 3cm and approx 80% effaced). She also grabbed some fluid to do a check for amniotic fluid. That test came back negative but she really thought I had a leak so she had me lay on my side for approx 10 minutes. Then she came back in and used the speculum to check for pooling fluid. She found some and it tested positive. Since we weren't sure exactly when I had sprung a leak they wanted to start me on pitocin. I also needed antibiotics because my GBS test was positive.
The rest of this post was finished on 9/2/2011
They broke my water around 7am. There was meconium in it. So of course I got a little nervous. The doctor tried to reassure me. This happens regularly. Don't worry about it. They will take care of him if needed. There will be a NICU nurse in the room just in case. I got an epidural at around 8am. By this point I was at 6 cm. I actually rolled around the idea of not getting one for a while. The contractions I had been experiencing to that point, while certainly painful, were not even close to as bad as the ones I had with Sam. I made my decision based on the fact that they were certain to only get worse and I know that sometimes pain is necessary and sometimes it's not. This wasn't one of those times. The epidural worked wonderfully with the exception of the fact that I totally lost control of my left leg again. I could wiggle my toes and lift my right leg but my left was worthless. I really hate that feeling.
2 hours later I started to feel some pressure. I thought I just needed to up the epidural dosage so I told our awesome nurse my thoughts. She agreed initially and gave me the little dose trigger so I could control my dosage (within their already preset parameters). She also said she was going to check me really quick. Then she said, "well we could increase your dosage or we could just have a baby. What do you want to do?". Uhhh, no brainer here....let's have this baby. She started having me do some controlled pushing to get the baby in place. I got a little nervous because I was watching the baby's heart rate and seeing the decelerations that corresponded with my contractions. I started to worry about a possible c-section. She assured me everything was going just fine. The baby's head was being squished when I contracted but that he was not in any danger. A few minutes later she called the troops in. I probably ended up pushing about 10 times and then there he was. At first he was a little blue and not crying so I started to get nervous again. They grabbed the little suction ball and suctioned some stuff out and a few moments later he was screaming. Is there anything better than a newborn screaming his/her arrival into this great big world?
They didn't have to take him to the nursery or to NICU for any special attention. They will watch him closely for GBS. He is doing great. He is breastfeeding like a champ. He just got back from being circumcised. He weighed in at 7 lbs 5 oz and is 21 inches long! We named him Brett Ryan - there is no rhyme or reason to the name. We just like it. Big sister came to visit last night and she seems to like him. We should be headed home by noon tomorrow!
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