I was four days late and my doctor was pushing induction because she was going to be heading out of town at the end of the week following our due date. We pushed back on the and said that we were willing to wait it out. Since I wasn't dilating at all, the doctor said I probably would be better off getting induced since the baby "was ready." Sure enough as God had planned, I went for a pedicure the night I was supposed to be induced and when I got home I went to the restroom and then whoosh--my water broke.Knowing what I learned from Bradley--I took my time, had a nice long shower, relaxed a bit and waited for Ben to get home from work. Since my parents had made the trip out from CA it was nice having them there when the excitement happened. After about four hours, we took off to the hospital.
I wasn't feeling my contractions even though I was having them so finally after being checked into the hospital, the nurses said that my doctor was concerned that since I wasn't feeling my contractions that I should get some Pitocin to get things going. I begrudgingly did and about an hour after the Pitocin started I finally felt the contractions. The contractions were much worse than I imagined. I thought I would have been able to sit on a ball, lay in bed, shower or do some of those types of therapies but the only way I could labor comfortably was to walk around and when the contraction same I would have to lean forward on the bed and rock back and forth all the while doing my focused breathing. One thing I realized that I didn't plan for was, What to do if all of my ideas of what to do while laboring" didn't work. So I was a bit caught off guard by that and since I was up the day before my labor started at 5 am.m and worked all day long trying to tie up my corporate responsibilities before our little bundle arrived, i was pooped!
To make a long story short, after four hours of contractions one minute apart, and pacing in my room for 4.5 hours (from 10 p.m. to 3:30 a.m.), I finally got an Epidural. I was becoming extremely nauseous and exhausted. Since I was determined to have a vaginal birth, I thought at that point (in the wee hours of the morning) that even if I could tolerate the vomiting, I would be too tired to deliver and push our baby out.
The Epidural did help--I was able to rest in bed and that helped a ton. Shortly after I became fully relaxed. I started feeling lots of rectal pressure--I told the nurse but she kind of brushed me off so we then demanded that I be re-checked, since the last time I was checked was only 45 minutes prior to when the pressure started and I was only 5 cm dilated then. Sure enough, within 45 minutes (5 a.m. to 5:45 a.m.) I went from 5 cm to fully dilated. They called my doctor then and I started pushing at 6-6:30 a.m. Our special blessing, Payne Richard Stark was born at 8:05 a.m. He was 7 lbs. and 5 oz. and 20 inches long. We insisted on skin on skin following his birth and that was amazing. Payne latched on about five minutes after coming out of me as well and the three of us shared the first 20 minutes of Payne's life together and absolutely loved it. Ben was able to cut Payne's cord which was a great experience for him.
Payne is very healthy and has been the best addition to our family. Thank you so much for all of your coaching and teaching. You really helped Ben and I with our plan and we feel that Bradley, although things didn't go as planned, still helped us enjoy and prepare for our experience as best we could.
Anna & Ben, Milwaukee
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