after 13 days of hospital bed rest and constant contractions that were only kept at bay with the help of several medications that had awful side effects..our little girl decided no matter what she was not staying inside any longer. On July 9th (the day I was supposed to maybe be discharged given my contractions had stayed the same after cutting back on the meds) I woke up at 4am with pretty nasty contractions. I said to Josh, as he slept on the super uncomfortable hospital couch, hmmm this really hurts. Since this had been going on for so long, we decided to just lay in bed for a while and see what happened. By 6am I couldn't refrain from buzzing the nurse, and by 7:30am they had wheeled me from the post-partum area where I had been spending my ante-partum days into the labor and delivery area.
Dr. F. came in as he did every morning and after some internal examination thought maybe this was just another one of what we had come to call 'my episodes'...it would go away in about an hour. He went on his way,but by late morning the nurse had already put a call to him to see if they could give me some pain meds as the contractions were getting closer and closer and way more painful. Something told me this was getting a little bit more real..
After speaking with Dr. F, the nurse did another internal examination and determined I was indeed dilating despite the meds to prevent that. She smiled at me and said "the baby is coming..."
At the moment all I could do was look at Josh, and I was so scared, I just cried. I knew the baby was doing well, she was 34 weeks, but still, we wanted to be able to keep her in there at least until 36 weeks.
I tried to brave the contractions for a while, but by 3pm the nurse said if I didn't get the epidural within a half hour, I'd have to wait another 3-4 hrs because the epidural doctor would be busy in a c-section. At 3cm dilated I decided to go for it..the contractions were pretty awful already..and they were about 3-5 mins apart. We tried to time it so the epidural needle would be in me between contractions but I ended up having a particularly bad contraction right during the epidural--not the easiest thing to sit still while a huge needle is stuck in your back. Josh later told me the needle was indeed pretty big..
From then on, while I kept dilating, it had slowed down some, as the nurse had explained would happen because of the epidural. Dr. F showed up when I was about 5cm dilated and broke my water to speed things along since the baby was coming out no matter what and the less stress she went through the better.
After the epidural things were much better and Josh and I could talk, and discuss the fact we still had no name for our little girl..we decided we'd wait till we saw her--as had been agreed previously. We called our parents, siblings, friends, etc and told them the time had come..there was no holding back. Bridget and Aaron came to the hospital and while the three of them ate chips and drank soda, I had to satisfy my thirst and hunger with ice chips.
By 5pm Dr. F. said I would be ready to push in a couple of hours. When 6pm rolled around and progress was still very slow, Dr. F. explained about pitocin and suggested I take it to speed things along. I was exhausted and after being reassured it would be ok for the baby, gave the go ahead. I started pushing at 7:15pm and because of the epidural, pushing was the hardest thing ever--I couldn't quite tell if I was pushing or not. The nurse suggested I stop pushing the button to increase the epidural drip a little while before I started pushing so I knew in a while I would be able to feel the contractions. By 8:20pm or so I started feeling them, and pushing was getting more uncomfortable, though Josh was very good at keeping my morale up and holding my leg.
Close to 9pm Dr. F. mentioned the baby had turned her head a little sideways and was making it complicated to come out..turns out with the extra room she discovered after getting engaged to come out she decided to change positions. So, after 5 weeks of first demonstrating her desire to come out, the little girl decided to make herself comfy. By 9:30pm Dr. F. suggested a c-section since he hadn't been able to turn her head and he didn't want any additional stress since she was so small.
I was pretty terrified of potentiall feeling the incision, but once they wheeled me into the operating room and Josh sat my side I calmed down a bit. I was still scared and I remember telling Josh continuously "I'm scared of the incision...I'm scared of the incision..." At one point he smiled at me and said "They already did it." I thought they were joking, and I asked "Are you serious?" All I heard was Josh laughing and Dr. F. confirming that yes, they had opened me up and were getting ready to get her out.
I heard Dr. F. mumble something about how she was wedged in there good..and the next thing I heard was our baby crying. I turned my head to the side, where the neonatologist was examing her, and I saw her head..a head full of hair..and the tears flowed easily. After a few minutes they brought her over to Josh and he held her in his arms--they told us she came out breathing on her own--and everything was perfect then. I looked at her face and hoped Josh would agree when I said "I think she looks like a Chloë"--he smiled and I knew then that this little girl was something special.
We were allowed to see Chloë a couple of hours after she was born, they took us to the NICU and they gave her to me and she was pretty quick to find my breast and start eating. I was the happiest person ever--well, maybe Josh and I tied for that--and when I saw Josh holding our daughter I thought I would explode I was so happy.
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