A baby story....

So this is how it all went down, I will try to keep it short and PG rated.

On Friday Sept 30 was my first day of maternity leave (2 weeks before Connor was due). I got up early, walked Brooklyn with Nikki and went for coffee in the morning, then met Tanisha for some shopping at an estate sale, then lunch in Campbell. That afternoon I had a short nap and then got gussied up (dress, heels and tights) for dinner with Steve, Mike, Mary and their family friend, Chuck in Morgan Hill. I was feeling great! We had a lovely dinner (oysters rockefeller, seafood paparadelle with pesto, fruit tart, 2 sips of really good wine, and decaf coffee). Steve and I headed home at about 9:30 and I went to the bathroom as soon as we got home. That's when my water broke (I'll leave out the details, but thank GOD! it didn't happen at the restaurant)! I called the on-call MD and she told me to come into the hospital because I was probably gonna have a baby tonight!!!!!!!!!! Even though we were packed up and "prepared" Steve and I both ran around the house like crazy people locking doors, grabbing last minute things, tending to Brooklyn, etc.

We made it to the hospital at about 10:30 and the nurses confirmed right away that I had in fact broken my water, but was yet to have any contractions. They started an IV, gave me some antibiotics, checked baby on the monitor, checked my cervix (I was 2 cm dilated) and called the MD. My doctor was out of town and so the on-call, Dr. Dang ordered to start Pitocin to get labor started. I wanted to hold off and see if my body would get things started on their own but after a few hours and some walking, still no contractions so at 2 am we started the Pitocin to get contractions started. At 3 am I started having some pretty regular contractions. At 5:45 the nurse came in and noticed I was in a lot of pain. She checked me to see how I was progressing and I was 4-5 cm, she said usually people dilate about 1 cm every hour so I had some time. I called my mom and dad (who had come down at midnight to watch Brooklyn and be close by) to tell them it'd be a while. Just when we called, I had an intense contraction and started vomiting, eww. The contractions were getting to be right on top of each other and so I was struggling, especially thinking I had another 5 hours of this. The nurse told me if I felt pressure to let her know and she would check my progress. With the next contraction, I felt pressure and the nurse checked me (this was at about 6:15am). The look on her face said it all. She looked at me and said "well you have progressed a lot". Then she sticks her head out the door and shouts at the charge nurse "Call Dr. Dang, she's complete (i.e. 10 cm)".

This is where it got crazy intense. I was really hurting and had to hold off on pushing even though every ounce of my body wanted to push. The nurses prepped the room, they called the NICU nurse in just in case I delivered without the doctor. My nurse looked terrified because I was struggling not to push. She sat on my bed with me and she and Steve just kept encouraging me to blow, blow, blow. The message was "don't push". At one point I said "I'm scared because I don't think I can hold it anymore". Finally (after what felt like eternity, but was really 15 minutes) the doctor came in. Within seconds, I was in stirrups pushing. I pushed through 3 contractions and Connor arrived at 6:47 (yes, only 1 hour after the nurse checked me and estimated 5 more hours of labor)! It was the most amazing out of body experiences I have ever had.

Steve was amazing, he was so supportive and doted on me through the whole process. He knew just what I needed, rubbing my back, calling the nurse, telling me "you can do this" when I doubted whether I could wait for the doctor or not, etc. He was awesome. I was worried about him given he is squeamish about blood and guts but he blew me away. The doctor commented to me the next day that she was so impressed with how in between pushing I looked at him and asked "Are you OK?". We were both in it together.

Connor came out very healthy and cried right away. I felt like I was watching a baby story, but this one was my own. Holding Connor made all the pain, discomfort, fear disappear.