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We tried to go to bed Sunday evening, but I was psychologically
spent from laboring and being sent home – I tried to time my contractions, but
it was just frustrating as they were still between 6-8 minutes (and we were
told they needed to be between 3-5 minutes to return to the hospital). C was
able to get some sleep as my contractions amped up, became painful and never
closer together than six minutes. I was too tired and overwhelmed to recognize
the transition into active labor – even as I was resting/sleeping on the bed
next to C for six minutes at a time, then hopping up to painfully make it
through a contraction standing or leaning.
Obviously, we should have headed to the hospital before
labor became that intense. Around 3-4am, I was crying in pain and scared that
if we went to hospital they would send us home again. I woke C up and told him
that we HAD to go because I couldn’t handle it anymore (I’d been in labor for
almost 24 hours). He asked if contractions had picked up (they had) and I said
I didn’t know (I didn’t realize). My mom had spent the night and she woke up as
we were leaving and asked – C told her that we were going to have a baby (glad
I didn’t hear this as his optimism would have made me cry).
As we drove into the hospital (about 25 minutes) I was able
to time the contractions on the dash clock and yep, they were definitely
between 3-5 minutes, so that was reassuring. I was a lot less cheerful walking
through the ER doors than the morning before. I may have been screaming a bit
and needed a wheelchair. When we got back to a room, changing was painful, the
cervical check was excruciating and the IV placement took at least seven stabs.
I was at least at 7cm when we arrived at the hospital. Ten
centimeters (plus other things) is when pushing begins and I’d gone from zero
to seven in less than 24 hours (this is for all the moms who are passive
aggressively pressured by doctors when they aren’t dilated or effaced at 36,
37, 38 weeks). The nurses moved very quickly to get my IV in, get the anesthesiologist
in the room and call the doctor back to the hospital (it’s 430am or so).
Meanwhile, I’m in a lot of pain and I’m angry. I remember being frightened too
– I knew the doctor had been wrong to send me home the day before and I was
thinking that I had to be nice to him because the same doctor was on call and
would be doing my surgery now.
It took mere minutes to get me from my room to the OR and
hooked up with a spinal – which was wonderful! No nausea, no breathlessness.
Then the caesarean surgery. It all felt so urgent (to the doctors, it was –
can’t go letting a scheduled surgery candidate have an accidental vaginal
delivery). I was so happy to see my previous doctor in the OR as the second –
she was my doctor with V and while we didn’t see eye to eye on a few things,
she was WAY better than jackass doctor. C scrubbed in and we were off! I was
loads nicer after the anesthesia and let the doctor know that I thought we were
having a boy and that he’d be over 8.5 lbs. The snarky doctor said he didn’t
think the baby would make eight pounds.
Well, I was exactly right – we had a baby girl that weighed
exactly eight pounds at 510am!
Not that it marred the actual delivery, but the doctor
continued to make comments about the thinness of my uterine scar, fragility of
the skin at the scar site and how he recommended I didn’t labor again. Interesting
that I wasn’t supposed to labor with this birth, but due to his actions, I
ended up laboring for 24 hours, further thinning my uterine scar.
It was the best feeling to see her and hear her little baby
snuffles (I don’t think she cried out). C watched the whole surgery (again) and
said she came out all covered in vernix and definitely plump. With two boys
before her and me expecting another boy (C says he knows she was a girl) – C
saw she was a girl (sort of) and told me – I asked him to repeat himself!
[Part 4]
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