On a snowy day in April, we closed on our first home and moved later that week. It has been a whirlwind trying to get stuff moved into its correct location when you can't lift over 20 pounds. I suppose it is situations like this that call for the saying "slow and steady wins the race."
The first week of May started with another check-up and the doctor promoting the idea of being induced. She were concerned because Addie made very little growth (according to the ultrasounds) that last month. I politely told the doctor that unless is was absolutely urgent, the answer was no. Little did I know that she was going to get her way in the end.
In a way, I think labor started the night of Tuesday, May 2nd 2017. That night I was extremely restless, which was abnormal since I had been so tired I was falling asleep soon after my head hit the pillow. My hips and joints ached more than ever and there was just a general feeling of discomfort. I even got up, took a bath and thought to myself "I think she may be here tomorrow." After some time I finally fell asleep and when I woke up the next morning I was greeted with a show along with contractions. They were not super painful and very random, I even sent Rusty off to work and had a list of errands that needed to get done that day. About 90 minutes later the contractions seemed to start into a rhythm, and became more intense, it was then that I decided to call the doctor and see what she had to say--of course she sent me to Labor and Delivery at Kootenai. I finished packing our bags and loaded up the car, but still felt that I would be sent home, so I made sure to grab my list as well.
When I got to the hospital, the nurse determined I was at five centimeters and 80 percent effaced, but not in active labor and my bag of waters hadn't broke yet either. She called my doctor who said I could labor at home, but she really urged me to stay put at the hospital. They explained that their primary concern was the fact I was so dilated that I ran the risk of the umbilical chord becoming pinched (when my water did finally break) and cutting off Adaline's oxygen making it a real emergency. So I called Rusty and we decided that if we were going to have an emergency it is best to have it at the hospital--so I was officially admitted at 10 am and Rusty arrived shortly thereafter. By the afternoon I was still in early labor, bag of waters in tact, and had many visitors at the hospital, along with some not so much fun issues with IVs, the first attempt in my arm rolled, so then we moved to my hand, but after they saline -locked it the connection went bad which stung like no other when they tried flushing it, after that they had to switch arms and after dealing with being poked six times at this point I opted to forego the local anesthetic and to just go for the hand. By 4:45 pm, and little progress, my doctor had advised that we break my bag of waters to get things rolling. That soon sent me into active labor, so needless to say things got intense quickly. We were thinking she would have been born by midnight, but little miss was not ready to greet the world. At about 10:30 pm, I reached 8 centimeters, and about 90 percent effaced, dog-tired and Addie's heart rate had jumped up a couple hours prior and had not returned to normal. Because of this and the lack of progression, the doctor said she was going to start pitocin in a couple of hours if I didn't start transition soon. Realizing how tired I was and how intense the pain had increased to along with Addie's heart rate being so high, we decided to go with an epidural. So at about 11:00 pm, an anesthesiologist named Steve rolled in and gave me the epidural. It kicked in rather quickly, Addie's heart rate returned to normal and I was able to get some rest while we waited for further progress. The doctor came in about 2:00 am to check on my progress and was unsatisfied with the results, so she advised that we start pitocin to reduce the risk of infection for Adaline. We ended up starting the medicine since I was rapidly approaching 24 hours of labor and we also wanted to reduce any risk to her. At about 3:30 am, I woke up shaking uncontrollably and I ended up calling the nurse in thinking something was wrong only to find out that I had finally reached transition; and the shaking was due to the adrenaline pulsing through my body. A little after 4:00 am the nursing staff came in and felt it was time to start pushing, after about 75 minutes of pushing Adaline entered this world. She was born at 5:25 am, weighing seven pounds-four ounces and was 19 3/4 inches long.
