My Birth Story

On Monday,  February 28th I woke up at about 6:00 and called the  Dr. about minor complications I was having. (I’ll spare the details)   The Dr. said to head to the hospital to get checked out…just to be safe.  So, we got everything together quickly and ran out the door.  The roads were icy and we almost slid into another car at a stop light...that would have been lovely. 
We ended up getting to the ER at about 6:30 and went up to a room.   As soon as the Dr. got there he came in and checked me.  I was only at 2 cm. dilated, almost 3.  So, he wanted to monitor me for awhile.  I started having small contractions about 2-3 minutes apart.  They were very inconsistent in strength though.  Some just little cramps and some stronger.  So, at about 10 the nurse checked me again and said I hadn't changed.  The contractions weren't putting me into labor. She was almost sure the Dr. would send me home so my husband started getting our stuff together to go.  She came back in and said the Dr. wanted to break my water because he's not comfortable sending me home at this point.  We were pretty surprised. 
The Dr. came in at about 12:45 and talked to us about what was going to happen.  He broke my water and said if labor doesn't start on it's own they would have to give me something to get labor started.  We weren't thrilled about that because I was envisioning a LONG labor.  Well, labor started immediately and came on strong.  The nurse offered for me to labor in the jacuzzi or shower and I decided to try the jacuzzi.  After about 20 minutes she took me to the jacuzzi down the hall and I got in and felt immediate relief.  (Except for the contractions that were getting really intense.)  I almost fell asleep between contractions I was so relaxed.  It was getting bad so I told my husband that I needed some kind of pain medicine (that wasn’t in the plans…I intended on having a natural labor).   He called for the nurse and when she came I was feeling like I had to push.  She looked down and said "oh, we can't have this baby in the tub!"  She called about 3 other nurses along with my husband to get me out and ran back to my room.  I felt so out of it, I could have been running down the hall naked and wouldn't have cared.  Haha!  I got into bed and they got everything ready as I'm sitting there pushing because I couldn't help it.  Needless to say, it was too late for any pain medicine.  They of course wouldn't deliver her without the Dr. so they just let me push for about 10 minutes until the Dr. got there.  He sat down and Eliana Kathryn was born within a minute, first push.  2:41 p.m. 8 lbs. 21" long.  And she looked just  like her daddy!  Especially his baby pictures. 
I have to say, it was a very fast labor.  I'd like to say it was easy because it was so fast, but it was pretty intense.  Would I have another natural labor?  I say yes now because I think it’s easy to forget about the pain, but I don’t know how I’ll feel next time.  I wasn’t to the point of wanting an epidural, but I sure wanted some kind of relief.  Hopefully next time is just as fast.  That way I won’t have a choice again.  I am happy that I got to do it naturally.  I felt so good immediately after she was born.  I don’t think things could have gone any better.  We fell in love so quickly with this sweet little girl!  She definitely stole our hearts…