My final doctor's appointment was scheduled for April 14th and I knew that we would be talking about induction. I was excited, but nervous that the big day was actually almost here! I got to my doctor's appointment and was called back into the examination room. The nurse took my blood pressure and weighed me before making a comment about how Bean was a stubborn one! I laughed and agreed. While waiting for the doctor to come in, I got up to go to the bathroom and lo and behold, my water had broken! I went into the hallway, saw my doctor, and said that I thought my water had broken. She came in right away to examine me and confirmed that my water had broken. I was dilated to 4cm. She told me to head to the hospital and expected to see me the next day with a baby in my arms (she was on call the following day at the hospital).
As soon as I left the office, I tried to call Jim. He was at work and the phone kept going to a voicemail box at the school. I finally called the "emergency" number and got ahold of someone who put me through to him. He was definitely surprised when I told him my water broke and told me he would meet me at the hospital. In the meantime, I had to stop by our house to pick up our hospital bag and grab all our toiletries that we would need for the next few days. After making a few more phone calls, I headed out to the hospital and got there around 11:45am. Once we got to the hospital, I got hooked up to two different monitors, one for my contractions and one for the baby's heartbeat. It was wonderful to hear that sweet sound of Bean! Of course, the little booger kept moving causing the nurses to have to continuously come in and adjust the monitor.
Despite having broken my water, I couldn't really feel my contractions. I could tell that they were causing tightening but really couldn't feel any pain. After two hours of this, the doctor recommended starting Pitocin to try to get the contractions more regular. For the next several hours, the nurses kept coming in to check on me and continued increasing my Pitocin every hour. The doctor came in around 7:20 and said she was going to check me and told me not to be discouraged if I hadn't made much progress. I had only made it to 5cm dilated, 80% effaced, and the baby was in -1 station. The doctor told me that I had a forebag (something she described as the bag of water going over the baby's head again) and wanted to break it. After she did that, the contractions increased substantially. I was finally feeling pain and they were getting harder and harder to breath through. I was planning to go as long as I could without getting the epidural but at 8:05, I was screaming for one!
The doctor came in to do my epidural and my nurse reassured me that he was very fast and good at what he does. I told her it didn't matter as long as I couldn't feel the pain anymore and didn't have to see the needle! The epidural was pretty uncomfortable, especially when I had to deal with contractions during it. After it was in, the doctor assured me that in 20 minutes I would feel complete relief. Twenty minutes later, I was still feeling the contractions and was freaking out that the epidural wouldn't work for me. The nurse gave me a button to push every 5 minutes to increase the amount of medication. The medication then started to work, but only on one side of my body. The doctor said that as a last ditch effort, I needed to lie on my left side for 20 minutes and if that didn't work, they would have to redo the epidural. So they put me on my left side and I prayed that it would work. Well, it did! A little too well though because the lower half of my body was completely numb. After that I couldn't feel any contractions and could only tell when they were happening by looking at the monitor.
At 9:15, I was checked and had progressed to 6-7 cm dilated with a contraction and 5-6 without a contraction. At this point, I was given an internal contraction monitor so they could measure the actual strength of the contractions. The next few hours were spent watching the monitors and visiting with our family that had gathered at the hospital. The doctor/nurse had told me to let them know when I was feeling pressure, so I would know when I needed to start pushing. I kept waiting to feel pressure but my lower half was so numb, I felt nothing. Finally, right before 1am, I was checked again and the doctor said it was time to start pushing! I couldn't believe it. I wasn't feeling contractions at all, so the nurse had to tell me when a contraction was coming, so I knew when to push. Pushing was not fun, but I couldn't feel any pain or pressure at all. I pushed for around 45 minutes before the doctor was called back in. I knew it was almost time! I pushed a couple more times when the doctor came back in and before I knew it, Bean was out!! It was 2:06am. The doctor said "It's a boy!" and I didn't believe her! I was SO convinced that Bean was a girl that I was completely shocked when our little Paxton made it arrival. Paxton was put on my belly while Jim got to cut the cord and we got to hear our little man's first cry. It just so happens that my parents were walking past the room when Paxton came out and they were able to hear his first cry too :) Jim got to go out in the hallway and share the news that it was a boy!
Our little porker weighed in at 8 pounds, 13 ounces and 22.5" long. He is absolutely beautiful and already looks so much like his daddy!
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