I’ve been meaning to get her story up for at least a week, as I’ve probably forgotten some important details by now, but I’ll do my best ;) It’s been kind of a crazy transition so far!
Alright, so it starts with my last Dr.’s appointment before she was born, on Tuesday, October 10th. I’d been putting off letting them check my cervix to see if I’d dilated at all but now that I was over 39 weeks, I finally let them check me and I was already 1.5-2cm dilated and 60% effaced. That’s the most progress I’d ever made that early for any of my pregnancies, so I was pretty stoked about that. Even though I really didn’t think anything was going to happen within the next few days, I still felt this weird sense of urgency to get a few last minute tasks done, so I spend that evening checking off some to-dos on my list. Overnight to Wednesday I started feeling contractions. They weren’t super strong, but they were strong enough to wake me up in the night, though they were a good couple of hours apart.
Throughout the day Wednesday my contractions started getting closer and closer, so I decided I should probably have a plan for the boys – I hadn’t made one in the event she came early, because I didn’t expect her to come early!! Figures. My mom was going to be here on Saturday until the day after my due date (the 16th) so I really thought I’d be covered. But I made some hasty plans with a friend for that night in the event we went to the hospital.
The contractions kept getting closer and closer together. After the boys went to bed, I paced my living room for about an hour to keep things going and at that point they were 7 mins apart. I ended up calling my midwife just to remind me at what point we’d want to come in, because I’d kind of forgotten. She told me to take a shower and see if that changed anything, if not, to come in so that I could basically get in line for my epidural. So I took a shower, nothing really changed, so our friend came over to stay with the boys and we headed to the hospital. I think we got there around 11pm. Unfortunately, my contractions got farther apart by the time we got checked into triage. They checked my cervix and I was only at a 3! Boo! They said I could go home, or I could walk for an hour and they’d see if I’d made progress. I was NOT GOING HOME. So we walked the halls for an hour and my contractions definitely picked up again and they were getting to be really painful. By the end of the hour (about 1am) I was having a hard time supporting my own weight when they hit. We went back to triage and I was checked again. STILL at a 3! And from the time I stopped walking to when they checked me again, but contractions spread out AGAIN. I was feeling pretty discouraged. They didn’t want to give me the epidural yet because I technically wasn’t in active labor yet and I think they said they were a little short staffed that night. The midwife suggested a sedative to help relax me and to take the edge off the pain – I was feeling a little desperate for some pain relief at this point.
I said yes to the sedative (it was that or again, I could go home. NOPE). So I got moved to a delivery room and they got ready to give me an IV to give me the sedative. My contractions are still coming strong, but haven’t gotten any closer together. They had to stick me 3 times to get the IV in successfully, and it’s the only time I’ve cried during any of my labors – it was SO PAINFUL on top of my contractions and I couldn’t get the sedative (=pain relief) until they got the IV in. After three tries, it was in. Since everything had taken so long, I asked to be checked again to see if I was dilated enough to just go ahead with the epidural. The midwife checked me and I was finally at a 4 and could get my epidural. They said it would take up to an hour though, so I could still have the sedative if I wanted. Um. Yes.
When they finally got it in and got the sedative in my system, I was able to sleep a little bit. The sedative made my eyes wig out on me a little bit – that was weird. They said it would make me loopy but I just ended up sleeping, thank goodness. Sometime later (I want to say 3:30am), I got the epidural, hallelujah. Not too much later I was checked again and was at a 6 – thank goodness I was finally progressing! And then we waited.
And waited. And waited. I think we slept some more. The shift changed at 7-7:30 am and I think by that point I was at an 8, yay! So we waited some more. My epidural kept wearing off on my right side, so I gave myself several extra doses during our wait. I stayed at an 8-9 for a loooooong time. So long that they gave me pitocin to get things going again. But I stayed at a 9 for about 3 hours. By 11am I was feeling frustrated again, so tired and ready to be done, but I was still at a 9, my water hadn’t broken yet and she was still high up in my pelvis, so there was nothing I could do but wait. Some more.
FINALLY at almost 1pm on Thursday the 12th, I was at a 10, and she had moved down far enough. My water still hadn’t broken, so the midwife broke it for me and it was finally time to get ready to push. I started pushing at 1:02pm and Haylee Marie Moffat was born at 1:08pm, at 6lbs, 9oz, and 19 inches.
That’s right. I pushed for 6 minutes. The midwife made some comment about how I wasn’t messing around, I got it done! I was SO READY FOR IT TO BE OVER!
And she was finally here!!!!!
The hospital stay wasn’t too bad, recovery has been really smooth so far. I opted to leave a day early, I feel like it’s so much easier to just be home. We were cleared to be discharged no problem, yay!
Ready to go home!
It has been a tricky transition, and not just because we have 3 kids now – both the boys have been sick with mucous-y coughs and congestion and while we’ve kept their contact with her to a minimum, it’s a small miracle that Haylee hasn’t gotten sick yet. I feel so bad though, they want to love on her so much! It’s very sweet to hear them talk about how cute she is and how much they love her :)
So glad she’s finally here!
