Little did I know, but two days after my last post, our lives would completely change for the best. I had been doing so much to help induce naturally… eating spicy foods and lots of dates, walking more, “running” stairs, sex, nipple stimulation, using my breast pump… but it turns out what would induce labor the best was breaking my dang finger. Yes. That’s what I’m chalking up my labor induction to.
On Thursday, January 3rd, I had our neighbor’s dog over for a puppy play date with our pup Pepper, and I did a bunch of things around the house. The two of them together are wild, and when taking them outside on their leashes, your arms get pulled in opposite directions and your body gets dragged (not the most obedient haha). So this day, things were right on track for their normal and as I was taking the girls outside, I had unknowingly wrapped the leashes around my hand and fingers. Opening the front door, the dogs sprinted out, my dog being the guiltiest party, and my poor little right ring finger got majorly pulled and twisted. I’m talking like abnormal shape and loads of pain. After consulting some of my colleagues in the ED via text, I decided to drive myself to urgent care to get checked out. I wasn’t sure if my finger was dislocated or broken, and I didn’t want to try to yank it back into place just in case. Thankfully I went in, because man, it was actually badly broken! While there, everyone in the clinic was in a panic over whether I was going to go into labor, and I reassured them that I wasn’t. Sadly. They scheduled me to see the hand surgeon the next day, to get me seen before my scheduled induction two days later. I couldn’t believe how things were going down. What horrible timing!
So that night, my husband and I were talking about how we were going to spend the next night, our last night just the two of us, planning a dinner in and soaking up our time together. We went to bed at a reasonable time, not knowing that it was actually the last night just the two of us.
Around 3:45am, I woke up feeling like I had to go to the bathroom (not an uncommon feeling), and on my way back into our bedroom, I felt a strong and crampy contraction. At that point, it kind of woke me up, so I laid in bed awake. About 40 minutes later, I felt it again. There were still some items I wanted to pick up before our Saturday induction, so I browsed the Target app and made my shopping list while my husband slept beside me, and while waiting to see if I’d feel more contractions. I couldn’t tell if it was real or Braxton Hicks, so I decided to try to get some sleep. Around 5:00am, I turned off my phone and curled back up in the bed. Around 5:15am, my husband’s alarm went off to wake up for work. As he went into the bathroom, I turned over in bed and felt a little gush of fluid. I walked to our guest bathroom and noticed that my underwear was soaked. I then knocked on the bathroom door, and said those famous words, “I think my water just broke!” Because I was Group B Strep positive, I called the on-call provider, and they told us to come into the hospital. I just remember thinking, “oh my gosh! It’s happening!”
After showering, loading up the car with the hospital bags, and taking our pup to daycare, we got to the hospital. At this time, contractions were about 15 minutes apart. We got up to L&D and they put us into a triage room. They hooked me up to monitors and asked a lot of questions, and told us that if they checked us out and my water didn’t actually break, they would be sending us home. The doctor did her exam, I was now 3.5cm dilated and 50% effaced, and said she could feel the bag of water bulging, but said she would do some evaluation under a microscope to see if my water had broken. We couldn’t believe after all that excitement, we could potentially be sent home. After a couple minutes, she came back in and said “Congrats! You’re staying!” and commented that I likely had a small leak in my bag of water that was being plugged up by baby.
We got into our L&D room #2 around 7:45am, and I was feeling really good. Contractions were around every 12 or so minutes. I had no appetite, and was still feeling really active, so I drank lots of water and walked the halls. By 11:00am, I wasn’t feeling so good. Contractions were getting intense, and walking the halls was not something I wanted to do anymore because I didn’t want to be seen hunched over my IV pole. It was around this time too that I started to have to poop with every contraction, another reason hall walks were a no-go. I always wanted to labor in the tub, and I had a nice whirlpool tub in my hospital room, but the thought of getting out of the tub every 5 or so minutes to poop was NOT on my agenda. I sent my husband to the cafeteria so he could eat something because I knew the day wasn’t going to allow for many breaks after this, and when he came back up to the room shortly later, I was not feeling confident that I could do this without meds. I really was trying to be tough, but modern medicine exists for a reason, so my thought moved to “bring on the drugs!” I asked for pain meds around noon, and when they checked me again, I was 6.5cm. The nurse described the feeling I’d get after getting the IV medication as “four margaritas too many.” She was right, I immediately felt drowsy and woozy, but the pain got better. I laid with my eyes closed and took a break.
Less than an hour later, I had one of the worst pains I’ve ever experienced… a sustained four and a half minute contraction. It was a nightmare despite the strong pain meds on board. The nurse came back in the room and was like “how did that feel? We were all watching it on the monitor at the desk and it did not look pleasant.” Let me tell you, it wasn’t. I asked her when I could get more medicine, and she said not for another hour. At that point, I felt I couldn’t handle it a second more, and cried about needing an epidural. Around 1:45pm, the epidural was in place. I didn’t feel any pain from the placement, but the contractions while it was getting placed were a whole other story. So much so that the anesthesiologist said at one point with a bit of panic in his voice “please don’t move ma’am!” as my body was shuddering from trying not to cry due to horrible contractions. After more tears and gathering my composure, the sweet sweet pain relief of the epidural began to kick in. At this point I was 8cm, and contractions were about 3-5 minutes apart. Another OB doctor came in and broke my water to further kick start my labor. I could not believe the amount of fluid that came out – they told me around a gallon! -and was very thankful it did not fully break in our bed that morning at home. After that, I was going through transitioning and started to get really nauseated and shaky. While I could still feel the contractions, I was actually able to rest for about an hour.
Around 3:00pm, I was 10cm and 100% effaced. The nurse said that I could start pushing soon. My doctor wasn’t going to be in house at the hospital until 5:00pm, and I didn’t want to have anyone but her deliver our baby if possible… so I told the nurse I wanted to wait. About 5:15pm, the pushing began. I actually couldn’t believe it, but the nurse was running the show, with my husband as her right hand man. It was just the two of them helping me and pushing me along for over an hour of active laboring and pushing. Also, major shout out to my AMAZING husband who was an absolute rockstar the entire day, and particularly with helping the nurse and encouraging me during the that last few hours. While pushing, the nurse said, “I see A LOT of hair!” My first response was “what color is it? Is it red?” Haha. Oh, my tired, delirious brain. For the record, the hair was brown. Despite many many pushes at that time, the head wasn’t coming out… just that hair making its presence known. Honestly, I think the hardest part of the entire labor process was figuring out how to breathe and push as hard as they needed me to.
Then about 6:20pm, my doctor came in. I was starting to get my groove, and the pushing got more intense. I’m not certain when baby’s head first made their appearance, but things happened quickly after that. More pushing, intense pressure, and feeling like my vagina was tearing open (it wasn’t), our babe was born at 6:57pm at 40 weeks 5 days. My doctor said, “okay dad, what is it?” And I will never forget that moment of Ross looking into my eyes with “It’s a GIRL! We have a Charlie!” She was absolutely PERFECT.
Since having Charlotte, our lives have been so different but in the best of ways. She’s now a whole month old, and I cannot believe how fast time is flying by and how quickly she is growing. I couldn’t imagine loving her more.
When It Comes to Us 