Let me preface this post by saying it is mostly for my own memory's sake so it will probably be pretty long and I apologize if I offer too much information.
April 11th: I went on Thursday, the day before my due date, for my 40 week appointment. I was fully expecting to be at least a little bit more dilated than I was at my 39 week appointment (barely 1cm and 50% effaced). I had walked everyday the week before at least 3 miles...surely that would have done some good? Well, I was extremely disappointed when the doctor told me that I had no progress and he couldn't even strip my membranes because I wasn't dilated enough. I started sobbing right then and there in the office...not because I was tired of being pregnant but because my parents only had a limited time that they could come visit and I wanted them to have as much quality time with Hudson as possible. I left the office resigned to the fact that I would be back the next week for my 41 week appointment. I called my parents and they decided to delay their trip a day so that they would have a little more time on the back end of the trip. They would arrive Monday afternoon...I fully expected them to make it in plenty of time before Hudson was born.
Due date: Not much happened on my actual due date, I went about my normal day. I worked from home that morning and then for a long walk. In the afternoon Alison and Gray came and visited and then I went grocery shopping. While I was at Walmart, I had a few contractions that I assumed were Braxton Hicks (I had been having them for weeks) but a few sort of took my breath away. That night I had a few more but I honestly didn't think anything of them.
April 13th-15th: I woke up Saturday morning feeling perfectly normal, a little disappointed that the contractions from the night before had subsided. Chris was working at the nursery all day so I took the dog for a long walk and then ran some errands. Chris and I had decided that we would have a date night since it didn't look like little man was making his appearance. So, when he finished up his work we went and ate dinner at Ruby Tuesdays. We were going to go to the movies but just decided to come home instead. We went to bed around 10:30 and I woke up about an hour later with cramping, thinking that my dinner just hadn't settled well. I soon realized though that I was feeling contractions and laying in bed certainly wasn't helping. I didn't wake Chris up but came downstairs and tried to distract myself by watching tv but it wasn't working. At 1am I finally went back upstairs and decided to try to get some rest but there was no way I could sleep through the contractions- each time I felt one I had to get out of bed and squat by the side of the bed until it passed. Chris woke up and we started timing the contractions, they were about 5 minutes apart at that point. By 3am, they were about 3 minutes apart and I started vomiting from the pain and lost my mucus plug (sorry, I told you there might be too much information). At 4:30am I decided to get into the tub and the warm water actually did help ease the pain for a while. But, unfortunately I continued to be sick to my stomach and was afraid that I was going to be dehydrated. So, at 7:30am we decided that we should go to the hospital since I had been having very consistent contractions for 7.5 hours at that point.
We arrived at the hospital, got all checked in, and into a triage room. My contractions were still about 3 minutes apart and lasting about a minute each. However, the nurse checked me and I was only dilated to a 2. I was so disappointed but the nurse explained that some people just have a really hard time dilating despite consistent contractions. I walked at the hospital for an hour and was checked again, only to be dilated to a 2.5. So, I was given 2 options- I could stay and they would put me on pitocin and break my water or I could go home. I chose to go home and walk as much as possible and try to dilate on my own. The nurse said that she was pretty confident I would be back later that day.
We got back home around 10am and I did not allow myself to sit down other than to get back into the tub for a little while to try to get a break from the pain. We took several short walks in the neighborhood and Chris was so helpful at this point because every time I would have a contraction, the only way I could manage the pain was by leaning over and swaying side to side and he would massage my lower back which helped alleviate some of the pain. At that point, the contractions were still about 3 minutes apart but now they were close to a minute and a half long. I didn't want to go back to the hospital only to be sent home again so we stayed at home all afternoon. But Chris had been texting with our child birth class teacher and she encouraged us to go back and at least get check. So, around 5pm we headed back to the hospital.
Back in triage, I was told I was dilated to a 4 and could be admitted to a labor and delivery room. It was a relief that I had made some progress but was slightly disappointed that I was only a 4. In the room, I answered a million questions from the nurse and had an IV started to get some fluids into me (I still hadn't kept anything down at that point). Around 7:30pm I received the go-ahead from the doctor to get up out of the bed and walk for as long as I could stand to try and make some more progress. I made it about 30 minutes and was in so much pain that we just came back to the room and I stood and swayed until the doctor came in to check me. At 8:45pm I had dilated to a 5 and he broke my water. This made the contractions really pick up, they were almost on top of each other at that point. I toughed it out until 10pm but I just got so exhausted that I finally asked for an epidural (my plan was to have a drug-free labor but I didn't expect such a long labor!). I was dilated to a 6 at this point and I was able to get a little bit of rest. At about 1am Monday morning I started to feel a lot of pressure and the nurse checked me again and I was dilated to a 10 but Hudson was not quite low enough for me to start pushing. Finally, around 3am I was given the go-ahead to start pushing! My contractions had really spread out at that point so I was only able to push every 5-7 minutes. But after a little over an hour of pushing our sweet Hudson entered the world at 4:11am! He was immediately placed on my chest and in that instant I felt more love for a 6 lb 13 oz, 21 inch long bundle than I knew was possible. We are so excited to start our journey as a family of three!
