I went into labor on Friday morning at about 4:30am.
I woke up with what felt like menstral cramps, but they would get very intense about every 6-8 minutes. At first, I wasn't sure it was labor. I'd had my membranes stripped the day before and had some cramping so I wasn't sure if this was part of that or the real deal. At 8:30 I called the doctors office and they told me to come in and get checked. We got there at about 9am and found out I was indeed in labor (2-3cm, 100% effaced). They told me to go walk until the contractions were so intense that I couldn't handle it, so we headed to the mall.
About 1:30 we headed to the hospital. At this point my contractions were closer together (3-4 minutes) and much more painful. We go checked in and they checked me - no change. So, they told us to walk around the hospital. We did that for a few hours. At about 6:30 when they checked me again there was no change. They recommended I go home and labor there for awhile (so that I could eat and be more comfortable) and then come back when I couldn't stand it. So...we left, went to Kerr Drug and filled my precriptions (Ambien and Tylenol), went by Bojangles and then went home. I took the Ambien and Tylenol and laid down and tried to sleep. Neigher of the drugs worked - but the breathing techniques did (Thanks Jackie!). At about 1:30 am the pain was bad enough I started to throw up so we went back to the hospital.
Unforutantely, a lot of what I experienced was also back labor, so even when the contractions were gone my back was in some pretty intense pain. Once we got there they checked me and I had progressed to 4cm. They gave me Stadaol to help me with the pain/sleep and I was able to sleep through the contractions for a few hours (however that stuff made me SO loopy!) At about 8 am they checked me and I had progressed to 5cm so they broke my water to help speed things up. I got my epidural at about 10:30am. They came back and checked me sometime later and I hadn't progressed at all so they decided to start pitocin to ramp up the contractions. They talked about a possible c-section if pitocin didn't work. They came back shortly and said that the pitocin had made the babies heart rate drop to 70 (which is low) so they were going to stop it. By this time I had progressed to 6cm and was running a little fever. I continued to labor, with no progression. We tried pitcocin one more time - with intense monitoring, but I still didn't get past 7cm. His heartrate was also all over the place, going high and then low, and I was still running a fever. The doctor came back and we again discussed c-section vs. continuing to labor. Because of his heartbeat, and my fever, and the fact it had been almost 40 hours of labor at this point, we decided to have a c-section.
The c-section was performed and he was born at 8:45pm on Saturday, October 29th. As soon as he was out they had to take him to the Special Care Nursery because of my fever and his heartrate issues. They wanted to make sure I didn't have an infection that was passed on to him. He spent 3 days in the Special Care Nursery. The first two were for IV antiobotics. The last was primarily due to blood sugar issues (it wasn't as high as they wanted - as a result I had/have to supplement with formula until my milk supply is enough for him).
The last part of the story is a little difficult. My grandmother had been very ill the last month or so. She was so excited about meeting and seeing her great-grandson. Unfortunatly, she didn't get to meet him, but was able to see pictures of him right after he was born. Mom said she had a big smile on her face, and knew she was a great-grandma again. I found out at 1:20 on Tuesday that she had passed away. We took him home that night at 6:30pm. I am so grateful she had a chance to see the pictures. All this to say this was not the way I thought that Brantley would get here, but in the end it doesn't matter, because he is now here, home with us, and changing our world with every silly face, cry, and diaper change. This is one very loved kid.
I'll write more later about the first night (oh man I was not prepared at all for that!) and how we're goin now. Until then... enjoy some pictures.
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