Cole's birth story

On April 26th, at around 5am, I felt a bit of a 'gush'. I had lost my mucus plug for the second time. Contractions were getting more regular, but not regular enough to go into the hospital yet. I just knew at that point I was in early early labor. The only thing that had me kind of freaked out, was that they were between 3 and 5 minutes apart...but just not super painful. Never having been in labor before, I made a post on cafemom (lol) about knowing when labor really starts and when I am supposed to call or go in when they are already this close together, but still very bearable. I was wondering if I was one of those lucky people whos contractions really don't hurt that much lol.

I had my 41 week appointment that day luckily, at around 11am. I was still having lots of stuff coming out...and was questioning at that point if my water had possibly broken. The nurse practitioner I saw that day..didn't really check. But, my blood pressure was kind of high (I was diagnosed with gestational hypertension 3 weeks earlier). So, they told me to head over to the hospital because of that. When I got into L & D...I started feeling more gushing with the contractions...and yep, my water had indeed broken. So, i was admitted.

Contractions kept going all day, but i was still only 1 1/2 centimeters, 70% effaced. At around 11pm, they put in the cervidil, and gave me a shot of morphine to sleep. But, of course, the morphine had the opposite effect and woke me up. On top of that, my contractions completely stopped. Around this time, in the room alone, with no pain, on morphine, and no contractions...I was making a whole bunch of random posts on facebook to kill time...haha.
When a doctor came in at 8am, they came to take out the cervidil, and couldn't find it! lol! I have no idea how long it was in there for, but that morning, there was STILL no change. We started the pitocin at around 9am, because at that point, it had now been over 24 hours since my water had broken. By 3pm, my contractions were nearly unbearable. They were STRONG. Lasting a minute, happening every two minutes...with hardly any time to recover from each one. I needed SOMETHING. It was bad. I was only at 4cm. When they kept checking me, i was still staying at only 9cm. Finally, at around 11, when it was time to make a decision on c-section or not...I was 8 1/2 and 100% effaced. But, he was still at +2. He didn't want to drop. So, there was more c-section talk. I didn't want one. They put an internal monitor on his head, and another one inside to measure the real strength of the contractions. They were jumping up to 100. It was crazy. And the epi was wearing off, so anesthesia came in and refreshed the epi for me. I finally got an hour of sleep between 1am and 2am.

When I woke up, my tailbone really hurt. I was checked, and was 10cm, fully effaced, and he was now -2. They told me it was time to start pushing! From my hips upwards the epi started to wear off...but my legs were completely numb. Man it was so painful...as they still had me on the pitocin. He was posterior, but I didn't know that at the time. Starting at about 3:30, during some of my pushing, I stopped being able to hear his heartbeat...and it being attached to his head, it wasn't because it was falling off a monitor. Then, during a whole contraction..his heart stopped. I was so freaked out...that he wasn't even fully crowned yet...and on the next contraction, I pushed so hard, he flipped and came out all in one push.

He was 8 pounds, 3 1/2 ounces. 21 1/4 inches long. Full head of hair, blue-grey eyes. Born at 3:41am on April 28th, 2010:)