The day I went into labor was the day that the ultrasound had twice indicated was my due date, which was six days prior to the due date (January 14) my doctor established. My doctor predicted that he was a big baby (over 8 lbs) and was relieved that I went into labor early. I went to work on Monday morning, January 8 and called my doctor to tell him I was leaking amniotic fluid. His office told me to go to the hospital because the leakage could indicate an infection. I went to the hospital where they hooked me up to the electronic fetal monitor (EFM) for over 2 hours. Brian was afraid that they weren’t going to let me go home, all because Cole’s heart rate did not go over 150 for 15 seconds. I explained to them that Cole was just a laid back baby! While I was at the hospital, I was overcome by nausea and ended up purging in a garbage can. I felt really sorry for the other pregnant lady in triage on the other side of the curtain who had to listen to me puke! I thought that maybe I was getting sick and that the sickness was separate from my body preparing to go into labor. I finally got to leave the hospital around 2:30 p.m. They said that the leakage meant my bag of waters had broken, but they also told me that the bag was still intact.
After I got home, I ended up purging again and then took a nap. I awoke around 5:00 p.m. and went downstairs to lie on the couch and feel sorry for myself because I felt awful. Brian’s mother Wendy came over and was preparing some chicken noodle soup when my water officially broke at 6:30 p.m.. I wasn’t as excited as I should have been because I’d been puking all day and needed to eat and drink. I took a shower and got dressed for the hospital. I sat down to eat some soup and my water broke again. I went back upstairs, took a shower, got dressed, went downstairs, started to eat some soup, and my water broke again! At that point, I decided to just go to the hospital wet. We arrived at the hospital around 7:30 p.m. and were immediately given a room.
I was paired with Hope, a nurse who’d given birth naturally to all three of her children, which ended up being a tremendous help to me. She never once offered me medication to relieve the pain. In the beginning I was concerned about the care she’d provide us because it took her forever to read our one-page birth plan. We had indicated in the plan that we did not want an IV, but since I was so dehydrated, they insisted on giving it to me anyway. She had a lot of trouble getting the IV in place, causing a lot of bleeding in my left arm, which greatly disturbed my mom. Otherwise, she was a great nurse.
Labor was pretty much what I expected although it was slow going at first and not very predictable. I was hooked up to an EFM (another hospital tool I wanted to avoid as much as possible) the entire time. I had heard that the EFM can sometimes be mesmerizing to the coach, and that was certainly the case with us. We could even see what the contractions looked like for all of the other women in labor. The women who’d been given Pitocin had perfectly shaped bell curve contractions. There was a concern early on about Coleman not moving around enough. His heart rate didn’t go over 150 and there was talk about giving me Pitocin, which I REALLY wanted to avoid because I thought it’d make the contractions too painful to bear. Instead, Hope made me suck on oxygen during the entire labor process, which increased Cole’s heart rate and allowed me to proceed with no drugs.
At around 11:30, Hope said that I was only 2.5 cm dilated, and she manually increased my dilation to 4 cm, which I didn’t know was even a possibility. In the early morning hours, she dilated me further to 8 cm. The contractions were extremely painful by that time, and Brian helped relieve the pain by rubbing my back during the contraction. I felt like pushing at 5:00 a.m., but didn’t want to tell the nurse for fear of her telling me that I wasn’t yet dilated enough. By 5:45, I was at 10 cm and ready to push. It seemed like my mom, Wendy and the doctor all arrived at the same time for the final phase. Jillian arrived a few minutes later. I pushed with all of my might for about 40 minutes, and Coleman was born at 6:37 a.m. He was 7 lb 13 oz and 20 inches tall.
