Note: (1) If you are currently pregnant or have had a difficult delivery, you may not want to continue to read. (2) If you do not wish to learn more details about my delivery, you also may not want to continue to read.
I wanted to write down the details of Genevieve's delivery before I forget them all.
July 18, 2012
7:30pm I felt a sudden little gush of fluid. Was not sure what it was. It was not much so I did not think it could be my water. About five minutes later I felt the same type of thing. We called my on call doctor for advice, both he and my midwife mother-in-law suggested putting on a pad. If it was in fact my water it would be soaked within 30 minutes to an hour.
8:00-8:30pm Not much more fluid so I decided my water must just be leaking or on the verge of breaking. I figured I would end up in the OB's office the following day to have it checked out.
9:30pm Slight cramping (#see note below), nothing major. I would even say that period cramps are way worse. My mother-in-law suggested I go to bed.
10-11:30pm Laying in bed unable to sleep. Cramps are still not bad just enough that I knew there was no way I could sleep through it. Finally I got up and went downstairs to distract myself by watching tv and checking out people's pictures on Facebook.
11:30pm(7/18)-12:30am(7/19) Cramps are finally getting strong so I decided to keep track of how far apart they are and the duration of each on. They were about 7 minutes apart and maximum 30 seconds in duration. We were supposed to call the doctor when they were 5 minutes apart lasting about a minute for an hour. I figured I had a way to go so I decided that sleep might be a good idea.
12:30am Laying in bed pretty uncomfortable.
1:00am Josh starts to keep track of how far apart the cramps are.
1:30am We decide that with them ranging from 2 to 6 minutes apart and lasting all varying lengths, we should call the doctor. We were told to go to Fairfax hospital. Since everyone says first babies take forever to arrive we took our time getting ready and making sure we had all the gear together.
2:00am We leave our apartment
2:15am We arrive at the hospital. Josh escorted me to the registration desk and then went to park the car. Now I pre-registered at the hospital but she still had a ton of forms for me to fill out. I honestly have no idea what they were for. I was in extreme pain pretty much the entire time we were standing there. Once Josh came back from parking the car he took over signing the forms for me. The one form I did sign, no one would ever be able to recognize my signature or compare it to anything else I have signed in my entire life.
2:30am We finally sign everything and arrive in the triage area of Labor and Delivery. There they ask some questions and monitor your babies heart beat as well as your contractions. It was very difficult for me to answer her questions at this point in time. By now I knew I was actually in labor but I never would have guessed the extent to which I had progressed. The lady did ask me about an epidural and I said that wanted to keep the option open since I figured I was like maybe 4 centimeters dilated. Keep in mind that a natural delivery was always my plan. Since I did not know if my water had broken they called in a doctor to exam me. She reported that I was at least 9 centimeters and she could see hair. Things moved very quickly from there.
3:00am We are moved into the Labor and Delivery room. It seemed like at least 6 nurses were in the room getting it set up. In fact the name of the lady who has been in the room before me was still on the dry erase board. They took what seemed like forever getting an IV started. They finally got it the third attempt. At this point my OB arrived to exam me. I was fully dilated and effaced, ready to push.
3:15am The pushing began. I remember looking at the clock and thinking that our childbirth class had said that pushing should last for about 30 minutes with a natural birth. I mentally made note that by 4am I would have that baby in my arms. My doctor left to go take a nap in one of the sleep rooms and I began pushing. Minutes later the nurse was calling my doctor back. After about 4-5 sets of pushes, Genevieve popped into the world.
She is absolutely beautiful and we are so in love with her. At around 6am that morning Josh and I looked at each other and were like what just happened. We had no idea 12 hours prior that we would be welcoming our daughter into the world.
I will post more details about our first few days together later. We are still in the hospital and will be going home tomorrow.
#- For the longest time I did not actually think I was having contractions. Everything I had read said that with contractions you would feel it all over your abdomen and into your lower back. The later contractions extended to my back but for the most part I only felt pressure in my abdomen from my belly button up.
