Birth Story

It took me a while to calm down enough and get everything ready to go, so we didn't make it to the hospital until around 9 that night.
They started me on pitocin around 10:30. Contractions started up a few hours later and they intensified quickly. The night nurse came in just before her shift ended at 7am to check on me and told me I was still only around a 3.5 - what I was when I came in the night before.

I wanted to rip my IV out and go home, but instead I asked for an epidural because I knew I couldn't handle these kinds of contractions for the next 20 hours. I assumed I'd be laboring all day based on my previous experience with T and the fact that the pitocin was obviously doing nothing for me.

It was at this point that I was informed that because I wasn't at a 4 I was not yet in "active labor" and couldn't get an epidural until I was.
I didn't like this nurse. She was kind of rude and it took her 4 or 5 painful tries before she got my IV in, and now she was telling me I couldn't have drugs when I wanted them.
I decided I really didn't like her when my doctor came in 10 minutes later to check me herself and tell me that no, I actually was at a 4. So there, dumb nurse. Get me my epidural! My doctor also broke my water and said she bet she would see me before noon to deliver my baby. I internally rolled my eyes. I thought I would be lucky to have her by that day.

I sat through a very long hour of increasingly intensifying contractions before the anesthesiologist arrived. I remember thinking these contractions felt the same way as the ones I had with T right before I had to push. They were bad.
Seth, sadly, had to leave the room while they put the epidural in. In case you don't know, having to sit perfectly still while you are having painful contractions and they are shoving a huge needle into your back is probably the hardest thing to do ever. When they were done the nurse had me lay on my side.

And then instead of sweet relief, I was hit with the most painful contraction ever. I was screaming. I think I was actually behaving like those ladies do in the movies. I remember thinking "I think I need to push. That can't be right. It's only been an hour and a half since my doctor checked me and I was only a 4 then."
The nurse was smarter than me (a new nurse that I liked) and immediately realized something was wrong with my reaction. She checked - I was at a 10.
And all that dumb epidural had time to do was numb up my legs, which only made delivery infinitely harder.

She had me call Seth to tell him to come back to the room. He picked up and I said "Get back here. I am about to have this baby." Maybe a little dramatic, but I was in a panic (and a lot of pain) at the time. Probably one of the craziest phone calls he's gotten, since when he left 15 minutes earlier he assumed I was still hours away from delivering.
Anyway, Seth came running, my doctor came running, I pushed for about 15 minutes, and we had Hailey at 8:53 am!

So with T I had a 30 hour labor (although how much of that was "active labor" now I don't know), with H it dropped to 2 hours. I am a little afraid that the next baby I have will also want to significantly decrease labor time and I will be having it on the kitchen floor.
Hmm. But - loved having such a short labor.

And I love this girl.