Rewind with me two years... (can NOT believe that he's almost two!!)
Isaac was due May 2, 2012. I was working at GE throughout the whole pregnancy, and finally decided my last day should be the day before his due date - May 1. Also - reminder that we did not find out if he was a boy or girl. :) I was totally fine with the surprise thing throughout the pregnancy, but in those last couple of weeks I just really wanted to know & start imagining our baby as he/she would be - much harder to do when you don't know the gender.
So, May 2nd came and went. We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary the following day - May 3rd - by going to The Homeplace. And we kept waiting. Honestly, from what I can remember, I didn't mind the waiting too much. I enjoyed having some time at home without working to do a few final things before the baby. Sure, I was pretty uncomfortable, but I knew there wasn't much time left no matter when the baby came.
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| On our anniversary at The Homeplace |
Saturday night we went to eat at Cracker Barrel to celebrate an early Mother's Day. Sunday, May 13th rolled around & I was getting a little bit anxious about baby coming. I really did not want to be induced the next day. I had already tried pretty much everything to get labor started. I had walked almost 2 miles most days during lunch at work and I ate all the foods thought to help start labor. So, Sunday morning I decided to try castor oil. There are some pretty mixed opinions on whether or not this is a good idea. I'm not necessarily advocating this, but it's what I did.
I was advised to take 1 Tbsp of castor oil in a smoothie, and then repeat an hour later. I had no idea what to expect, and honestly was expecting it would make me throw up. Thankfully, it did not! Nothing really seemed to happen, actually. I was a little disappointed.
That afternoon at 4:00, though, I had my first contraction! I think I had been napping prior to that, because I knew baby was coming soon one way or the other & tried to rest. The contractions weren't too bad, fairly infrequent but pretty regular. I went to bed at some point & think the contractions woke me up around 1 AM. They still weren't too bad, just annoying, so I went to the back room & alternated sleeping on the couch, watching Andy Griffith, and leaning against the birth ball to help get through contractions.
Monday morning I had one last doctor appointment scheduled. We decided to go ahead & go, since I wasn't ready to go to the hospital & the doctor could verify that this was real labor. Sure enough, the doctor said it was real labor, I was about 4 cm dilated, and she was hopeful baby would be born before 5:00 that night (which was when her shift at the hospital started). Well... labor went on all day. The doula I had met Friday night came over some Monday morning to support me, but then had to go out of town. (But wait... she comes back into the story with Anna!) My contractions would be pretty strong, but not close together, or close together, but not very strong. It was confusing & a little discouraging. I had called my parents after leaving the doctor's office that morning & they had already arrived in VA, trying to find things to do to kill time. By 10 PM Monday night, I was pretty exhausted. And unsure of what to do. We called the doctor (because I was supposed to be going to the hospital to be induced anyway) and she said we could go ahead to the hospital.
When I arrived at the hospital, I didn't have to go through triage and was admitted right away. (So nice to skip that!) They gave me something to sleep for a couple hours at that point, because exhaustion was the biggest problem for me right then. Then, after a few hours of sleep, (around 2 AM?) they gave me Cytotec to get the contractions going a little stronger. Well, they definitely got really strong & close together, but I got stuck at 7 cm. For a long time. And the contractions were too strong for them to give me more Cytotec. It's all a bit of a blur now, but at some point my midwife came in and said that the baby was turned face-up and was basically stuck. She said I needed an epidural so that I would relax & the baby would be able to turn. So, around 10 AM Tuesday I got the epidural, even though I really hadn't wanted one. However, we had said all along that we wanted whatever was best for the baby - so I'm very thankful for that epidural!!
The rest of the birth was relatively uneventful. My blood pressure dropped scary low after the epidural, but some extra fluids straightened that out. I even slept some once I had the epidural! Finally, around 4:15 I started pushing. An hour & a half later, (and 49 hours after labor started)at 5:47 PM on May 15, Isaac was born! It was such a special time and so fun to find out that "the baby" was a sweet baby boy! He was quite a big baby - 9 lbs, 1.5 oz and 22.5 inches long. We were so thankful that Isaac was so healthy, and I made it through his birth without any complications.
