The Story

As you can see, all of the activity I had over the weekend kicked things into gear! Monday afternoon I made an extra appointment to see my midwife Tuesday morning because of all of the contractions I had Sunday. I wasn't supposed to see her until February 9th (next Wednesday) and I didn't really want to make the appointment because I didn't want to get my hopes up. But Anthony used the "we want to make sure the baby is okay" card and I couldn't say no. Our appointment was at 9am Tuesday morning and when the midwife checked  me she gave me a surprised look and told me that I was 100% effaced, at 0 station, and 3cm dilated (for those of you who don't speak pregnancy-ese he was locked and loaded). Anthony and I kept looking at each other in disbelief. We were supposed to have 4 more weeks at least! The midwife was hesitant to give us a time frame, but she eventually told us that she wouldn't be surprised if we had him by the weekend. Holy moly!!
10AM- Anthony took me back to work and we started trying to wrap our brain around what we needed to do to finish getting ready for him. There were so many things that we hadn't done yet! Almost as soon as I got to work I started feeling contractions again, just like I had on Sunday. After about an hour and a half they started to get a bit stronger so I called Anthony to take me home. I thought that I would be able to go home and rest and that they would fade away. Wrong. Once we got home, they just kept coming. They were irregular in that they were far apart (like 10 minutes for some, 7 minutes for other, then 9 minutes, etc...) but they were stronger and lasting at least 1-2 minutes. I tried sitting in the bathtub for awhile and that seemed to help, as well as kneeling on an exercise ball while watching two episodes of grey's anatomy. Anthony was in the other room trying to study and saying "Yes!" every time I had a contraction. He figured a Tuesday baby would be much better for his exam next week than a weekend baby :)

3PM- I felt something "pop" kind of forcefully and I felt like I might need to go to the bathroom. As soon as I got there, water started gushing out of me. I called to Anthony and he came in the bathroom and couldn't believe what he was seeing. We were definitely going to have a baby today! I stayed in the bathroom since water kept coming with every contraction while Anthony raced around the apartment, throwing things into a suitcase and trying to get everything to the car as soon as possible. He even forgot his keys at one point! I saw him rushing around like a madman, but I can't say that I felt any sympathy for him. I was "not feeling good" as I told my mom when I called her on the way to the hospital.

Once we got in the car and were headed to the hospital, my contractions at this point had jumped to 2 minutes apart! They tell you to come to the hospital when they are at least 4-5 minutes apart, so we were kind of panicking. I did not want to have a baby in the car on the side of the road! Anthony told me later that he already had a plan that if a cop started to try to pull him over for speeding that he would just ignore him and call 911 and tell them to tell the cop to get us to the hospital faster :)

4PM-We got to the hospital without getting into an accident or trying to be arrested, we left the car at the Emergency room and Anthony wheeled me up to the labor and delivery floor. We met the midwife on-call which was one of Anthony's preceptors from his summer clinical. He was really glad to see her since he knew how cool she was. I was just glad that someone was there. They put me in a triage room where they put monitors on you and get you ready for your room. Once the midwife came in and saw how uncomfortable I was, she went ahead and checked me and I was at 7cm! This kid was coming fast!! They tried to get an IV in me and weren't able to but they didn't have time to keep trying, so they quickly wheeled me into a delivery room.

Once we were in the new room, it seemed like there were tons of staff members in the room, preping for delivery and for a newborn. They were still trying to finish admission paperwork at this point and different people kept asking me my full name, date of birth, social security number, etc... Didn't they know I was in labor here? After a few minutes on the birthing ball, I asked if I could have some pain medicine. (More like weakly begged). The midwife ordered me a dose of a narcotic and said that after I tried that we could re-evaluate and see if I wanted an epidural. Since the medicine was going to make me a little loopy, they had me use the bathroom while they went and got it (so I wouldn't get out of bed and fall or something once it was in my system). When we came out of the bathroom, I started shivering like crazy. Since that can be a sign of being ready to push, the midwife said, "Wait a minute, let me check you before we give you anything". She checked me and I was at 9.5 cm and the baby was even lower now. I don't think the medicine ever made it out of the pharmacy to even try to make it to my room. It was time to push!

5:05PM- The room exploded with activity! People were helping the midwife get her battle gear on while others were opening up instrument packages and preparing for James' arrival. They got me in position to push and told me to wait until I felt the next contraction. I was not looking forward to that next contraction, let me tell you! After the first push, the midwife looked at me and said, "Virginia, most people get to this stage and push for an hour to an hour and half. This baby is going to be out in 10 minutes". Boy was I happy to hear that! Anthony was helping to support my legs and with every push the midwife would coach me and then have Anthony look and see his head (you could pretty much see it from the beginning. That is how low he was to start). After about the 4th push he was almost out and I had to push, then stop, then push, and then stop so that she could suction him and make sure that the cord wasn't around his neck. It is seriously hard to stop pushing at that point! The midwife then had Anthony come around next to her so that he could deliver our baby and help place him on my stomach. It was beyond amazing to feel him on the outside of my stomach for the first time!! I couldn't stop looking at him. I didn't even notice Anthony cutting his umbilical cord or the nurse taking pictures of us.

Whew. So there you have it. A first time, natural (not completely intentionally) childbirth in 7 hours. One of the nurses told us that next time we will have to tell all medical staff about how quickly this happened so that they can be prepared. All I could think was, next time?? :) A few hours after the delivery, one of the nurses came in to check on us and told us that she and a few other nurses tried to hide it, but they cried watching Anthony deliver our baby. It was so special and exciting and wonderful that he got to do that. I still can't believe that it happened. Then I look at our son and I kiss his little forehead and I almost cry thinking, "We did it".