On Saturday, January 1st around 6 something in the evening, I lost my mucous plug at my parents and we all decided that labor would be following the next day sometime. However, after we went to dinner I was feeling irregular contractions and wasn't feeling like I had much of an appetite. We returned from dinner and my contractions were short but starting to become regularly spaced out every 5-6 minutes. We still thought that this would go on a long time and there was no need to drive to Dallas that night. After a couple hours of regularly spaced contractions, Kam and I decided it would be better to be safe than sorry and I might be more comfortable laboring at home and sleeping in my own bed. Right after we got home, my water broke and we decided we needed to get to the hospital right away. We called Dr. Fogwell who was thankfully on call and the nurses at the hospital kept in touch with him.
It was about 2:30am and I was checked and dilated to a 1 which was disappointing. Ezra's head wasn't engaged yet and since my water had broken also, I had to stay in bed on a monitor. I was having a lot of back pain during the entire delivery which wasn't what I had expected. It was definitely more painful than I had expected. I didn't get an epidural but towards the end when I was in transition, I asked for pain medication through my IV which I regret now but I had no idea how close I was to being finished. Unfortunately this drug, Stadol, didn't even take away the pain but might have lessened it slightly and then wore off. I told myself ahead of time that this drug wasn't without side effects too like making me loopy and affecting respirations. Thankfully, Ezra and I didn't have problems breathing.
Following this I was checked again at almost 6am and was a 7 or 8, and at 6am I was a 10! I could hear the nurses asking how far Dr. Fogwell lives from the hospital since they weren't expecting me to have fully dilated by that time! Thankfully he made it to the hospital just in time for me to push along with a lot of other staff people just in case he wasn't there yet. I heard him when he was looking at where the pitocin would have been hooked up say, it's not hooked up! Apparently this is not the norm! I'm thankful my body was causing a speedy delivery on its own but boy was it painful!!! After only a few pushes and less than a minute of pushing, Ezra was born on January 2, 2011 at 6:35 am and weighed 6 lbs 6 oz and was 19 1/2" long. We were glad my parents could be in the delivery room for the event too. It took a minute for me to not feel so woosie since I had been given the Stadol right before pushing, so next time I will feel confident knowing that if I am feeling desperate for a pain killer, I am probably about ready to push!
