the story of Graeme's arrival (part 1)

Hi!

So much has happened since my last post on Wednesday, March 19th. Just nine days ago.

Last Wednesday, my due date, went by.

Last Thursday went by.

We did have an ultrasound on Thursday. Graeme looked great in there and was floating around in plenty of fluid. I, however, was still only 1 centimeter dilated. They also estimated Graeme to weigh about 8 pounds, 10 ounces. Since that was getting pretty big, we discussed induction for the following week. We left trusting that Graeme would come on his own before that was needed!

Then last Friday went by just like normal. I was still trying to be optimistic about this whole "late" thing. Being late for anything is just not my style.

We went to bed on Friday night with no baby in sight. However, at 4:00 in the morning on Saturday, I was awakened by my bladder. Nothing new there, actually. But soon I was kept awake by contractions. They were a bit more painful than in the past, and after an hour of just laying there keeping track of them in my head, I woke Aaron up and we started timing them. They were between 3-6 minutes apart.

At 6:00am, they were still coming consistently, and moderately painful. So I decided to take a shower. 

An hour later, they were still happening. They hadn't gotten any closer together, but they weren't going away and they were not getting less painful.

I was hesitant to call the doctor too soon. I knew that since it was a weekend, we would be making the thirty minute drive to the hospital if we were going to get a labor check.

Finally, at 9:00am, I called the on-call doctor. To my great surprise, my favorite doctor from our office, Dr. Anderson, was on-call that day. He would have been the doctor to deliver me if I had been induced. He told us to come on in for a labor check. We took Penny out and let our friend Robyn know that we may need her to get Penny in a little bit. We were trying not to be set on staying at the hospital. We didn't know yet what the day would hold.

We got to the hospital around 10:00am and got set up in a triage room. They got me hooked up to the monitors and we were soon listening to the miraculous sound of Graeme's heartbeat and were able to monitor my contractions. That was kind of fun, despite the pain and whatnot.

Aaron did his best to entertain me as always.

Hospital sock puppet is always a good time.

When the doctor came in, I had progressed from 1 centimeter at my last check to 2.5 centimeters. That was encouraging, but not enough to get admitted yet. We were told to walk around the hospital for an hour and then come back to the room.

We got to know the Rex Hospital hallways quite well, and my contractions were definitely feeling worse. We got back to the room and strapped back in to the monitors, and we waited for another check.

To my dismay, as I was now experiencing contractions that felt much worse, we hadn't made any more progress.

They sent us away with our sad puppy faces and said, "You could be back here in a couple hours or a couple days."

Gee thanks.

Aaron asked how we knew when to come back since my contractions were already consistent and less than five minutes apart. Obviously if my water broke, that would be something. Otherwise, was I doomed to pain for up to two days?!

The nurse said, "Oh, you'll know if your contractions get bad enough to come back."

That didn't necessarily sound helpful, but away we went. We didn't want to go all the way back home yet, so we had Robyn grab Penny and decided to hang out around the hospital for awhile.

We drove over to Crabtree and had lunch. I was still having awful contractions, but I was not in dying pain yet. We devoured a pizza since we hadn't eaten since breakfast around 7am.

Then we walked around the mall for an hour just seeing if something would happen before we drove all the way back home. People looked at us strangely because every 3-4 minutes I gripped Aaron's arm in a death squeeze and tried not to look as bad as I felt.

When it was getting hard for me to walk, we decided to call it quits and head home. It was now 4pm and I hadn't slept since 4am. A nap sounded good.

However, when we got home, a nap was too good to be true. I laid down in bed, and the contractions got so much worse. I was now unable to talk during them, and Aaron had to remind me how to breathe. Otherwise I would forget.

I still refused to go to the hospital again. I was not going again if they would send me away. I couldn't handle another rejection.

Aaron did his best to keep me laughing. Even if I was only laughing on the inside.

Example:

Awful contraction comes.

Aaron:  "Just talk to me. Tell me about it." (Joking, obviously)

Me:  Death stare (lovingly), and pretend to choke him.

He wanted evidence of my violence.

After over an hour of miserable pain, I decided to break down and call the doctor again.

I told him that my contractions were much worse and still consistent. He, of course, told us to come back in. I'm pretty sure they can't argue with you much.

As we got in the car again, I told Aaron I would cry if they didn't let us stay. The ride to the hospital was long, and I thought I was going to pull the handle out of the ceiling of Aaron's car.

We got back to the hospital around 7pm and went up to Labor and Delivery.

We sat in the waiting area for a few minutes until the person who was about to be my worst enemy of the day made her appearance. She had been around that morning and remembered us.

"Oh. You're back." Insert patronizing face. "You know that your contractions could go on like this for a couple of days. We can check you again, but it doesn't mean you're staying. We don't have a triage room right now, so we have to go to a labor room. But, you could still be going back home."

She motioned for us to follow her. I leaned over to Aaron. "Pregnant Whitney" is a bit more dramatic than "Normal Whitney." I whispered, "I'm going to cry, and then I want to kill her."

She dropped us off, and thank God that it was shift change.

After I got changed and in bed, a new, magical, wonderful nurse came in. Her name was Megan. She started getting us set up for round two.

She was much more encouraging, and to my greatest joy, I had dilated to almost four centimeters when she checked. She said she would go call my doctor and asked if there was anything else I needed to ask him.

I said, "Just please ask him not to make me leave."

Aaron and I were optimistic, and our prayers were answered when she came back in.

She smiled, "He said, 'Let's have a baby tonight.'"

To be continued...