Our Little Early Christmas Present Part 2

Eddie and I got a room in Labor and Delivery. Summerlin Hospital has nice and big private rooms.

At 11:30 pm they put me on an artificial hormone called Cervadil to help me dialate further. Typically you are on Cervadil for 12 hours and then they start Pitocin, another artificial hormone, to get contractions going. Cervadil does not typically start contractions. Well pretty much immediately after they put me on the Cervadil I started contracting about 2-3 minutes apart. They were gradually getting stronger, but still manageable. While on the Cervadil I was confined to the bed except for bathroom breaks. I was not thrilled, but at this point I was handling the contractions just fine in the bed.

I called my doula, Stacey, to head over since I was contracting so regularly. My mom came over as soon as she heard we were having this baby in the next 24 hours. Eddie decided to run home and feed the dogs breakfast and grab a few things we forgot. As soon as he left my contractions got a lot stronger and I was having 2 or 3 back to back without a break. Since I was stuck in the bed I didn't have a lot of options for dealing with the pain. My mom helped me deal with the contractions by rubbing my lower back because I was having back labor. My doula showed up and jumped in to help. When Eddie walked back in the door I'm sure he thought he had the wrong room or something. I was in so much pain at that point that I'm sure anyone within a short distance thought I was being tortured. I am not a quiet laborer apparently.

The nurse came back and checked me. I was 5 cm dialated. She called the doctor and told him how strong my contractions were and how dialated I was and he said we could stop the Cervadil. It had only been 5 hours. So now we had to wait a bit and see if I would continue contracting on my own without the Cervadil or if Pitocin would be needed. I was finally able to get out of bed so we decided to try a birthing/exercise ball. I wish I had been able to do this sooner. Sitting on the ball helped tremendously, but by that point I was exhausted and not breathing through the contractions very well so I decided to get an epidural. The worst part about getting the epidural was that I had to sit completely still and hunched over through several contractions. Once the epidural kicked in I was able to rest a bit and get my energy back up.

I had no concept of time during my labor so I'm not sure what time it was at this point or how long I had the epidural before I was ready to push. The epidural didn't slow down my labor and I seemed to dilate the last 5 cm fairly quickly. The most interesting thing about the epidural was how the concentration of the medication shifted when I would lay on my side. If I was on my right side my whole right side would be very numb and on the left side I could feel my leg more and a few contractions. Then if I shifted to the other side (with help of course) it would switch to the other side. By the time I was ready to start pushing I was feeling some back labor on one side. I had considered having them back off my epidural some so I could feel a little bit more, but decided against it because of the back labor I was feeling.

Part 3 coming soon with lots of pictures of Nathan in the hospital.