I know it's been 2 months, but better late than never, right?
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If you are pregnant, you may not want to read this.
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At 8:00 on Friday morning (April 11—5 days before my due date), I woke up with contractions. My husband (Mike) and I started timing them. They were coming every 5 minutes, and were very regular. I still wasn’t quite sure if this was “it”, so I told him he should go to school and that I’d call him if things started happening. Five hours later, the contractions were getting stronger so I called my doctor, who told me to call the hospital to tell them what was going on. I called and they wanted me to come in. I called my husband at school and told him to get his butt home ASAP. =) When he got home, we quickly packed the rest of what we needed for the hospital stay and drove to the hospital 30 minutes away. When we got there, I was hooked up to a machine to monitor my contractions and checked to see if I was dilated at all. I was fingertip dilated (about one centimeter) and 50% effaced (thinned out). I was a little disappointed...I was in pain and had hoped that the contractions were actually doing something! They decided to send me home, with instructions to return as soon as my contractions got worse or my water broke. They informed me that I was, indeed, in labor. Yahoo!!
I called my parents and Mike’s parents and told them that I’d probably be having the baby sometime that night or the next morning...don’t forget, I live 6 hours away. They decided they’d drive up Saturday morning.
Mike and I got home and tried to relax, even though we were really excited! We took walks, drank some wine (doctor’s orders)...tried everything to speed things along. My contractions we getting more painful, and I got NO sleep that night.
Saturday morning at 9:00 am, Mike and I went to my doctor’s office to get checked. I was still contracting, and it was getting pretty bad. My contractions NEVER stopped coming, they were always very regular, that’s why it wasn’t “false labor.” My doctor checked me and much to my dismay, I was still only about one centimeter dilated. I almost cried...all this pain for what?! She told me to have sex (ha!!), take a walk...basically to keep doing what I was doing and she promised me I’d have the baby by the evening.
Frustrated, Mike and I went home, where our families were arriving from LI, hoping that I had made at least some progress. No such luck. All day, I had to pretend I was okay in front of them, when meanwhile, I was in a lot of pain and just wished they would go back to their hotel and leave me alone. Don’t get me wrong, I was SOOOO happy that they were going to be around for the birth, but it was hard not to lose it in front of them.
Oh, TMI, but I lost my mucous plug at home that evening.
That night was a repeat of the night before...I couldn’t sleep a wink and the pain was getting pretty bad. At that point, the last time I had slept was Thursday! On Sunday morning, Mike had to go into school to take a big exam. By 10:00 am, my contractions were getting pretty unbearable, so I called my mom in her hotel room and told her she needed to take me to the hospital. She quickly drove over and picked me up. My little sister was there (she’s 12) and it was hard to put on a happy face during my contractions, but I did, because I didn’t want to scare her.
At the hospital, I was checked yet again, and this time I was 3 centimeters dilated…finally, I was making some progress! The wanted to keep me there to walk and get in the jacuzzi (to speed things up), so I told my mom to go explore the area and to come back in a few hours. No sense in them waiting around.
At this point, I still hadn’t called Mike, because he was taking a very important exam and I didn’t want him to be distracted! I walked around the birthing center floor by myself for hours, took hot showers….and got checked every 2 hours or so. It was a slow process. I called Mike and he came to the hospital. Our families came, and then went back to their hotel, a little upset that they might not get to see the baby, since they all had to leave Monday morning. Everyone, including the doctors, thought for sure I’d have the baby by that time.
