After days (weeks) of strong but not regular contractions and complications that kept sending me to the hospital filled with worry, I was starting to feel like I was going to be pregnant forever! Luckily, everything with baby was OK, but the contractions were doing nothing to progress my cervix which was really frustrating. I couldn't get comfortable, I couldn't sleep, I was miserable and exhausted! To top it off, we hit record highs (105 degrees!) and it was hot even in air conditioning. On Wednesday, June 8 the weather cooled off, down to a nice cool 70 and my contractions were much worse. I had to stop whatever I was doing, breathe through them and nothing was making them stop or slow down but they weren't regular enough for me to think it was actually labor. I did have a lot of energy though, which surprised me considering how little I was sleeping. I spent most of the day cleaning the house. We went to Adam's soccer game, and had a nice dinner at LeAnn Chin. When we got home, I went straight to bed, I was exhausted after my long day.
I fell into a really deep sleep. I didn't wake up to go to the bathroom and I don't even remember Mike coming to bed, something that usually woke me up and made it hard to fall back asleep. A little after 2 am I did wake up to go to the bathroom. I climbed back into bed but couldn't sleep, something didn't feel right. About 10 minutes or so later I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom again, and as I walked to the bathroom I felt a little trickle of something run down my leg. "Great," I thought, "I just peed myself." I changed clothes but it kept coming. After all of our early labor experiences and false labor I didn't really believe it could be anything real; so I did what the books recommended - despite the fact i wasn't having contractions. I woke Mike up and told him that I thought my water had broken, and I was going for a walk. He waved me off, figuring it was another false alarm, rolled over and went back to sleep.
I put on some clothes and headed outside at about 2:45 am I walked down the driveway and almost to the corner before a huge gush of fluid came out and it hit me - my water had broken! I was officially going into labor! I turned around and headed home, plopped down on the front step and called the hospital. They told me to come on in, but not to rush since I wasn't contracting. I woke Mike up around 3:30 and began finishing packing our bags while he showered. I cleaned up a few things around the house, ate a light breakfast and tried to get my head around what was happening. Overall I was really calm and in control. Not what I expected going into labor would be like at all. A little before 4 I called Grandma Carol and asked her to come over and hang with Adam…she was excited and happy to help! I called my mom (who was in Kentucky for my brother's graduation from Boot Camp) and let her know what was going on. She was a little nervous and anxious since she was so far away, but she was excited for us too. Carol arrived at about 4:30 and Mike and I opened some gifts she had gotten for baby, finished collecting our stuff and headed out!
We got to the hospital around 5, they confirmed my water had broken and it was baby time! We set our goal for the day - Have a Baby! Mike and I both made predictions of when the baby would come. Mike guessed just before 8 p.m. and I guessed 3:47 p.m. Since I still wasn't contracting much, so we started with some walking, after a couple hours the contractions started picking up…after a dose of antibiotics, we went for another walk. This one was harder than the first, since I had to stop frequently as the contractions got stronger. Big Brother to be Adam and Grandma came by to visit us, which was really fun for me. Around noon the contractions were so bad I decided to go for the epidural, I was at a 3.5, which was close enough to my goal of getting to a 4 by myself. About an hour after the epidural they gave me a tiny dose of Pitocin to help things along, since I was still stuck at 3.5.
Around 2:30 p.m. I was dilated to 6! Woohoo! Progress! At 3 the nurses had a shift change, so a couple of nurses came in to go over my chart and such. They started another dose of antibiotics and checked me again….I was at an 8! It was about 3:20 at this time, a few minutes later I felt the urge to push, they checked me again and lo and behold I was fully dilated, the baby was engaged and we were ready to go! They called the doctor, who arrived about 15 minutes later and I started pushing. I was so hopeful that I would actually have a 3:47 p.m. baby - and my guess was so close because after about 4 contractions and 15 minutes of pushing, baby Alex came into the world at 3:53 p.m.
My first reaction was fear, he was too blue and the cord was around his neck and wrist, but the doctor quickly took care of it and placed my brand new, slimy newborn on my chest. Mike cut the cord. I spent awhile just holding my little man, he was so little and new. There is nothing like holding your brand new baby, all wrinkled and soft….Alexander Bruce arrived about 2 weeks early, and was so tiny! He weighed in at 6 lb, 12 oz and 19 inches…he was absolutely beautiful!
