I'm looking over my pregnancy journal that I kept while we were expecting Rhyan. I'm terrible about keeping up with journals, but i love having them. I think thats why i like blogging so much... its my online journal :-) BUT, i am really good about journaling while 'm pregnant. Its a time in life that i do NOT want to forget, but know that I will. Time will dull my memory and i'll forget all of the little details that I'll want so desperately to keep. So, i require this of myself while I'm pregnant. Plus, i'm thinking that it may be nice one day when my kids are older to have a journal that their mom wrote all about the time that I was carrying them. Before they joined the crazy family officially!
I was set for an induction with Rhyan at 39 weeks, 6 days. The medical "reason" Dr Pohl gave for inducing was that Rhyan was getting big. But lets be honest, it allows him to control the situation and be there for the delivery. I have plenty of friends who are not a fan of this birthing process, but for as for me, i liked it. I like to plan in advance. Do i think going into labor naturally is probably the smartest thing to do? Probably. But i'm a control freak by nature :-)
When I woke up that Monday, April 27th, I went ahead and called L&D at Gwinnett Medical to make sure there was a bed available... we were told to come on in at 6am and to eat a light breakfast. So, I got a shower, finished getting packed up and after eating a piece of toast and banana, we were off to the hospital!
After checking in at registration at 7:20, I got an I.V. and a pill of citotec to induce labor. It caused "hyperactive uterus". My contractions, while not intense, were consistently about 2-3 minutes apart. The medicine was ordered every 4 hours but Dr Pohl came in to check on me and ordered that it not be given again until the contractions calmed. So the next dose came (not by mouth... hint, hint...) at 2:30pm in hopes that it would affect the cervix more than the uterus. But it caused the same contractions. This time it was concerning b/c Rhyan's heartbeat was being affected, so they gave me a total of 2 doses of turbuline to slow them. At 6pm when Dr Pohl came to check (OMG, i remember that hurting sooo badly!) he deemed me 50% effaced, and a "tight" 1cm. :-(
That was pretty discouraging. He decided to come back at midnight and break my water.
But praise the lord, it broke on its own at 9:30pm. I felt like i had peed myself! And my contractions immediately got strong! There was a new charge nurse in there introducing herself when this happened and i never once let on that my water had just burst. It felt like a water balloon had just burst inside me, but you'd never have known. Jeff asked me after she left and i told him what had happened "why didnt you tell her?!". I didnt tell her b/c i didnt want yet ANOTHER person checking my privates. I mean, i did have a little dignity left at this point! I wanted Tricia, my fabulous nurse who had already seen me "down there" to come check.
Unfortunately, Tricia was helping deliver a baby down the hall. So instead, we got little miss chipper. As in, the most hyper little tech you've ever seen. OH, Lord, she got on my nerves! Keep in mind, she was very nice, just toooo friendly for me to like when I was starting to hurt pretty badly :-(
When my nurse came back in, she offered pain killers or an epidural. I was super against pain killers since they cross the placenta so I opted (reluctantly) for an epidural at such an early stage. At 10:30 and 3cm dilated, I got my epidural. It was fabulous... for about an hour. Then, around midnight i started getting a "hot spot" as they called it. They turned me and rolled me and "re-dosed" me... nothing helped. I was completely comfortable on my left side but my right side hurt. And it was only getting worse by the moment.
I started getting the "labor shakes". It was at this point that I think Jeff felt completely helpless. I was hurting so badly and he was concerned. He wanted to do something to help, but there was nothing to do. I found myself trying to be strong as I could so as not to scare him and honestly, I think it helped me to focus and be brave through this hard part....
That pretty much wrapped up April 27th into the wee hours of the 28th... the day we met little Rhyan.
More to come, tomorrow!
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