On August 1, I had a weekly appointment and bi-weekly non stress test. During the appointment I asked the nurse practitioner to check my dilation, more just out of curiosity since I started at 4cm with Evelyn after my water broke, and this time around I had a bunch of short cervix issues. So I wanted to see if that meant I was dilated any more. The nurse practitioner was surprised that I was already at 4-5cm and I wasn't having any contractions. However, it didn't mean much by itself so I was encouraged but not anticipating labor without the contractions. The nurse practitioner did say that if I felt any labor signs or symptoms to go straight to the hospital since this was my second labor and I was already dilated so much.
On August 2, we went out to dinner with my family to celebrate my dad's birthday. My sister, brother in law, and brother were in town to celebrate. I knew that my ideal plan was for my sister and brother in law to watch Evelyn while we were at the hospital, but they live an hour away so I wasn't sure how it would pan out. But fortunately, they were here that weekend! During the dinner, I started feeling some contractions. They were very mild and I only felt 3 within a 2 hour period. I told Albert on the way home from the restaurant and we decided to wait until I started feeling 5-6 an hour to go to the hospital. After dinner we decided to play some board games with my sister/brother in law. I was starting to feel contractions about every 10 min but only 30s long and still very mild. After that game I decided to tell everyone about the contractions. We were still contemplating whether we should go to the hospital so we decided to play one more board game while deciding. Since the contractions didn't let up, we decided to just go and get checked, hoping this was the real deal. My sister/brother in law stayed with Evelyn as she was sleeping anyway so we are very thankful they were here! My parents were our backup plan and they didn't even have their cell phones with them that night!
At around 11PM, we got to the hospital and they monitored the baby and found I was having contractions 2-3 min apart but they were still very mild. They checked my dilation and I was at 5cm, 90% maybe about 70% effaced. They couldn't do anything to progress my labor (like break my water or induce me) since I was only 38 weeks. So I had to progress by myself for any intervention. So they said I could be admitted temporarily and have IV's put in place and then try to have me walk around the halls to either dilate more or get my contractions going, or I could leave and walk around the hospital before getting admitted. If I didn't progress on my own or if contractions stopped I'd have to go home. We decided getting admitted was probably best and decide in a couple hours if things were rolling.
Albert while I was 7cm dilated and in PAIN waiting for the epi. Problem is that I'm really quiet during the contractions so no one knows when I'm having them and I just close my eyes. :-p
So after we did all the paperwork and got the IV put in place, I got checked one more time. Around 1230am I was at 6cm, 90% effaced. So it seemed like things were moving. We walked around the halls for 40 min. By the end of the 40 min the contractions were definitely starting to hurt more, but bearable. At 120am, the contractions were started to hurt alot more. I was at 6-7cm at this point. This is when I asked for an epidural although I could still manage through the pain and the nurses said I could probably handle doing this naturally based on my demeanor, i didn't want to feel the ring of fire!! So they started my IV. At 215am I got my epidural, sweet relief! I was still 6-7cm at this point. At 315am and 7cm, they decided to break my water. That seemed to get labor rolling! From then, it was 45 min before I was fully dilated and the babys head was in my vagina. They said I would probably only need to push a couple times since the baby was almost out. Turns out I needed to only push for 15 min (compared to 2 hours with Evelyn) and the baby was out!
The baby took a couple seconds (felt like minutes!) to cry, but he was okay and Albert finally got to find out what gender he was! There were a couple potential problems during the delivery that the midwife told me about after. Micah's cord was wrapped around his head. It was wrapped very loosely so it wasn't an issue. Another problem was that my placenta started to detach during labor and came out with the baby so I bled out more than normal after the delivery. She said this could've been life threatening to the baby if the baby didn't come out so fast as this was the babies source of oxygen. But thankfully, the baby came out fast at the end and it wasn't an issue.
So Micah's birth was about 3 hours from the time I felt intense contractions to the end, 5 hours from the time we were admitted to the hospital as compared to Evelyns which was 10 hours from the time my water broke to the end. Love how each story is unique. We are all doing great though and life is pretty much the same right now, just one more diaper to change and mouth to feed :-) We are loving it though!
