Labor and Delivery Timeline

910am arrived and got settled in the pent house labor suite! the same one catherine zeta jones had. the one that i never thought id get at all. how lucky am i? double the size of the other rooms. 2 windows corner view. started things off on the right foot!
nurses are all verrrry nice, very enthusiastc with my birth plan. feeling super relieved!

11am (approx.)started cervadil. meds to soften cervix before pitocin is started. contractions will hopefully start around midnight. hurt verrrrrry bad. awesome hubby was nervous and put on strong face for me. were told this is nothing compared to whats in store for us. lovely.

bad news. i'm zero dialated. good news. i'm having mild contractions every four to seven minutes. they say its early labor. hopefully it'll help my cervix do its thing!

1pm since my pressure skyrocketed i am on a low sodium diet. lunch was gross but i was hungry and need to eat up for labor. moms have been behaving well. they did bother the receptionist a couple of times asking when they could come in to join us when we checked in. had to have a little talk saying how stressful their meddling could be. they will behave now :) They just went out to grab some lunch. .

2pm my blood pressure is still high so i cant walk around. sad face. my butt and back hurts from sitting. no way in heck will i lay on my back like they want me to. managed to let them be ok to lay on side. baby must be monitored bc this cervadil may cause fetal distress. praying all goes well.

6pm the grammas have gone home for the day to rest up so they can come back well rested. daddy and i are now back to trying to relax and emotionally and physically prepare for this incredible journey. hypnobirthing has really helped chill me out and i feel fine. the contractions have started to get a little stronger and they feel like strong menstrual cramps. i'd say the pain level is a three out of ten. they are sporadic occuring every 4 or 5 minutes. at around midnight, dr golin, (who is camping out in the hospital) will come and check my dialation. im praying its good news! i still cant walk around bc of my blood pressure which sucks bc i feel much better physically when i walk. baby girls heartbeat is steady and thank the Lord she isnt showing any signs of distress. the only thing is she doesnt like being on the monitor either bc shes always moving away from it. sorry princess, hang in there. this will be over before u know it my sweetpea!

745pmish- weeee! dr. g checked me and i'm 70% efaced but only .5 dialted,. he gave me the green light to walk around. i'm freeeeeeeeeeee! off to walking we go!!

9pm. We managed to hide from our nurse. She's lovely and great but she didnt seem to enthused that i wanted to walk around. But she obliged. She found us and said its time to monitor the baby. But while walking my contractions came more regularly cool! They are uncomfortable. They arent pull my hair out painful, just uncomfortable like menstrual cramps. They say if you dont suffer from menstrual cramps then your labor shouldnt be excruciating. Lets hope that's true! Right now we timed them and they are about two minutes apart and 30 seconds apart. My nurse cuzzy Maricela told me that its ok but they cant be any closer than that because the uterus needs time to recoup. So now I hope they dont get closer than that. I'm curious as to my progress. Can't wait till Dr. G. tells us how we're doing.

9:05pm. Time for the magic medication :( Pitocin was just brought in. I pray to God things continue ok.

Updated Timeline:

9:05am. I was sadly only .5 cm dialated with the cervadil! The Dr G didn't seem the least bit phased and was happy that I was 70% efaced. He decided it was time to stop the Cervadil and start the Pitocin. He wanted to be conservative with me and started me at 1. We'll see what happens. I was incredibly nervous and not knowing what to expect. I still planned to labor naturally with no epidural and just use that techniques I learned through Hypnobirthing. I had major faith it could pull me through labor unmedicated. But as you will see, the use of the Cervadil and Pitocin make pain free labor impossible!

11pm. I was only 2 cm dialated. I predicted she would be born at noon the next day IF we go lucky. Will predicted 6am and his mom predicted earlier. The moms have been good and patient. However, my pain was starting to become unbearable. I just couldn't do it anymore. The hypnobirthing was not working for me how i expected. I will give it credit and say it helped me stay relaxed and not wail or panic or go full on postal while feeling the contractions. It helped me stay calm and relaxed for the sake of my baby. I visualized a lot of good things and it worked. I really didnt want to freak my baby out. She was already experiencing so many crazy things in my womb with the contracting uterus and stuff, i felt so sad for her. So i didnt want to make things worse for her so I tried keeping my cool. Then I got a new nurse for the third time that day. They change shifts pretty frequently! I had loved my previous two nurses but this new nurse made me feel very nervous. She was like "its my way or the highway" type of nurse which I do not do well with. This is MY labor and MY birth. She immediately started assuming I was going to get an epidural even though I had hung a very nice birth plan clearing stating I wasnt. Then she goes and looks at some framed pictures I had brought of Will and I on our wedding and I dont know, I guess something clicked in her to not be so Stalinesque (new word i invented). She chilled out and started convincing me for an epidural. Then something in me (maybe a perfectly timed contraction) said, screw it just go for it. You dont want your labor or dialation to stall due to pain. So i consented. It was so funny because as soon as I convinced myself, my face lit up, i perked up, and was like, ok lets get this show on the road, get me the anesthisiologist STAT!!! The nurse laughed, Will laughed, and I was like, this is bad, I can't go on without help. Its so interesting that as soon as I overcame my own hurdle of being ok with an Epidural, things got a tad easier. The anesthisiologist sadly came by around 1am. So I labored from 11pm to 1am pain med free. It was horrrrrrible. Horrrible, horrible, horrible. I honestly thought I was dying. Like, seriously DYING. I wanted to be put out of my misery. And since I didnt allow myself to scream or moan loudly, I just felt delirious and high off of pain. Right before he arrived, my nurse (whom I started to grow more fond of), was like, "You're in for a treat. This man is the best of the best. He never works night but for some reason he's working tonight and he's all yours." That REALLY put me at ease. He strolled in with his smooth and calm demeanor, installed the Epidural and in a few minutes I was feeling much better and more relaxed. It knocked me out, so Will was able to sleep too.

3am ish My water broke! It was the oddest sensation. The nurse said it would feel like a bag releasing warm liquid and when that happened, to call her. She came in and was like, "Yup!" Sadly after looking at it, she said it had light green meconium and my heart sank. I started to panic and just decided to pray baby girl would be ok. She said it happens when babies are distressed but its ok we'll make sure she's ok. Then i was like, crap, this is what I get for going the unnatural route. Why did I have to have high blood pressure and pre-eclampsia? Life was unfair I thought. But decided to get over negative thoughts and be positive because baby girl was feeling everything I was feeling. The nurse changed me and went on her way. Now it was tick tock.

4am: The pressure of the contractions were actually painful too. Not your normal painful but like SERIOUS discomfort. And surprisingly difficult to get through. I thought it would be easy cruising from the Epi on out. But. I. Was. Wrong. I can't take the pain anymore and start softly moaning desparetly trying to breathe correctly and eliminate tension and count through the contractions and use my Hypnobirthing CD's to get me through each 60 seconds of pain. At each count of 20 I would tell myself this part is almost over...

5am: I tell the nurse it feels like I need to go number 2. She's like that's good! She checks me and says I'm 8 cm dialated. That didn't mean anything to me because I know girls who get stuck on those last two cm's for like HOURSSS. And I felt like with my luck, I'd be one of them. So I did not get excited. Will has been asleep this whole time. I didn't want to bother him because actually I wanted to deal with it alone. There was nothing he could have done to alleviate them and I didn't want to get irritated with him trying to cheer me on. And trust me, I was irritable to say the very least.

6am ish: I call the nurse and ask her if its ok for me to go #2 because I just can't hold it in anymore. Would it be bad if i pooped? She was like, no hold on, let me go help you. She came in casually and checked me and like suddenly woke up. She was like "You are 10!" Give me some practice pushing. Its time. So I pracitced twice with her coaching me and she's like "Ok Stop!" and told the other nurse to get my dr. I hear my Dr get paged stat to my room. And it still hadn't hit me that this was it. I was in major denial. The nurse then tries waking Will up saying "ok dad, we need you this is going to happen now." And he was still in his delirium sleep state and just looked at me and stayed laying there. I finally had to say "Honey, our child is about to be born I need you up and next to me NOW." He popped right up and woke the heck up! He's like "oh sh**". Haha. Poor him. He stood next to me, my mom stood next to him and Dr. G strolls in and says to the nurse casually, "What's up?" She's like, we've been paging you Dr. G, SUIT UP now. And proceeded to suit him up. He's like "What? Oh really? Wow!" So he rushed to get ready and checked me and was like "Ok this is it." In the mean time my "now my friend" nurse helped me practice more. Then Dr. G was like ok push. Everyone was like "i see a head". I was still in denial and was like "No way. They're just saying that so I can push harder." By the way, that pushing thing was HARD. I don't know why I thought an epi would do all the work for you. I was WRONG. Thank goodness I didnt know what I was in store for me or I would have been super anxious and probably progressed slower.

Despite the chaos and pain, I am so happy to say that there was also a big sense of quiet and calm. The nurse encouraged me on but not in an over the top way. Same with Will, my mom (who was mostly quiet, probably in shock) and Dr. G was all business with a smile or two here. I really am happy this was how the enviornment was, our princess came in the most ideal type of setting considering the circumstances.

So I remember doing two or three sets of pushing and baby girl kept going back in. I was sadly also starting to give up. I just couldn't do it anymore. Will was the sweetest kindest coach. I could see the love and awe in his eyes. He was like "oh my God her head is right there. I can't believe it. You're almost there." The nurse was like "Are you sure you don't want a mirror to see?" I'm like, "You know what, ok i'll take one." So they rolled one in quickly and I thought it was so gross but after seeing her head peek through I got this sudden BURST of adrenaline and she came out that following set of pushing! In fact, Dr. Golin turned around to get something because this had been another "practice push" and he had to turn back and leap forward to catch her!! I saw her head completely out and I was like "Oh My Freaking Goodness!" Then the nurse was like ok another push and i pushed with a force I never knew I had. I didnt want her to choke in that position so I said, God help me and pushed. It worked, out came the rest of her body with the next push. So two pushes and she was out!! The feeling was indescribable. I still can't believe it.