Early and little

Just how I like my babies to come.

In retrospect, I suppose I was having early labor signs. I got a burst of energy a few days before, my uterus was just kind of achy and the braxton hicks contractions were a lot worse than before, but I truly wasn’t expecting him to come that early. I was also trying to manage my expectations, because Ransom came early, and I couldn’t expect it to happen the same way the second time.

But then around midnight I started contracting every 15 mins. They weren’t that close together or that bad, but they were also not far enough apart or mild enough to fall asleep. So I got up and went and laid on the couch. I had the clarity of mind to think “If this is the real thing, I need to write up a schedule for Ransom for Erica.” Erica was our back up plan if my mom wasn’t in town when he came.

Then contractions started coming faster, and I started timing them. Fun fact, prodromal contractions feel exactly the same as real productive contractions and the only way to tell if they are real contractions is a cervical check. Which you cant really perform on yourself. I was worried that what I was feeling was prodromal, because I had them last time and I didn’t want to show up at the hospital and have them send me home again — like last time. I took a bath to see if they would calm down.

By 3 AM I was pretty sure it was the real deal, and right after I woke up the Viking, the bloody show started. Gross, but confirmative of real labor.

When I woke the Viking up he didn’t quite believe me that we needed to go to the hospital. He asked how long I’d been contracting and then asked if I needed to have been contracting for 5 hours before going in. Naturally, he didn’t want to be sent home again, and he didn’t want to call Erica at 3am if it wasn’t real labor (remember prodromal contractions feel the exact same but they’re not…) I don’t blame him but I was very much like “GRAB THE BAGS AND CALL ERICA.” at that moment.

We’d planned to pack our hospital bag on that Friday. We’d also planned to do a bunch of other baby prep stuff that day. Instead, we packed our hospital backs in the middle of the night, and I actually have no idea what I packed. We also opted not to get any clothes or supplies for the new baby because they were all put away in Ransom’s room and there was NO WAY I was going to wake up a toddler at 3am to grab a onesie. Hard pass.

Brian called Erica and she was literally at our house within 10 mins. Seriously, find friends like Erica.

We took off for the hospital and the contractions were getting even more steady and they were definitely painful. When we got there at 4am, we had to use the emergency entrance, but thankfully this time they provided a wheelchair so I didn’t have to walk the quarter mile to the labor and delivery ward while I was in so much pain.

I was brought to triage and then had a cervical check. 4cm. Definitely going to have a baby that day. The problem was I was so early that they didn’t have any cervical checks on file for me (I was supposed to have my 38 week appointment that day, where they would have done that) and they couldn’t admit me (or give me an epidural) until they had two cervical checks on file for me to make sure I was progressing. So we had to wait for an hour in triage till they could do a second one and then admit me.

yay.

After an excruciating 45 mins where the contractions were coming every 3-4 mins the nurse came back, did another check and was able to admit me.

Thankfully I had made it very clear to pretty much everyone/anyone that I wanted an epidural and so they worked fairly quickly to get that going for me. Except the anesthesiologist couldn’t get the needle placed properly in my back so I had to sit criss cross* on the bed hunched over my huge belly and stay completely still for a good 30 mins while having contractions. All while the anesthesiologist poked around in my back. It’s actually as terrible as it sounds. I realized later that I was most likely in the beginning of transition* which makes sense because I was ready to cut a bitch. She ended up getting some back-up from the other anesthesiologist that had just come on shift, and four needle marks in my back later, the epidural finally kicked in. Thank God.

Except my blood pressure dropped and I started throwing up and feeling super shaky and like I was going to pass out. It took them 10-15 mins to get me stabilized. They just started putting shit in my IV and I have no idea what, nor do I really care.

Once all was calm and bright, they did another check and I was 6.5cm. Which means I had progressed from 4cm in about 2 hours. Things were moving a long pretty quickly. The doctor asked how I was doing and we talked about breaking my water, but I wanted to take a nap now that I wasn’t feeling any pain and id been up all night, and she had a C-section that had been waiting for a while so we decided to just chill and let things progress naturally.

A half hour later my water broke on its own. So much for that nap.

I was 8cm right after my water broke, so I had progressed from 6.5 to 8 in less than an hour. The nurse told me to let her know when I felt like I needed to push and about 45 mins later I called her and told her I was ready to have a baby.

The room transformed in 5 mins, and I started pushing. Three contractions later, Shepherd was born. I snatched him out of the Dr’s hands a second after he came out with a very GIVE ME MY BABY kind of agression. It was 9:07am on October 9th. He was 6lbs 5oz and 20.25” long and he was 15 days early.

Like I said, fast small and early. Just how I like my babies to come.

*Sitting criss cross was probably one of the most painful positions for me while having a contraction because I was feeling them almost exclusively in the front — right at my pubic bone. It was so awful.

*transition is the point in labor where you go from around 6cm to 8-10cm really quickly and its really intense. A lot of women get really cranky during this phase and lash out at people/their partner.