It was getting close to midnight, and I was still laying on the couch. I still wasn't over the fact that I didn't feel well. Travis said, "Are you ready to go?" And I remember thinking, "No. I'm not ready." I didn't want to go through it. Physically. You never really know how you'll come out, and I was fully capable at the time. Each night I laid down, went to sleep and woke up in the morning without interruption ...I feared the change. And the unknown. But we got up and I went in Sage's room since it's downstairs and kissed her goodbye. We got in the car and drove to the hospital. I appreciated all of the people that left their Christmas lights on all night. They were soothing to me. I have always loved sitting by the window looking out at the lights in the night when everyone else is asleep. We got to the hospital, and Travis took my hand and prayed a prayer for me, our baby, to find the right name for him and for everything to go smoothly. They had a Christmas tree on top of the main entrance, and Travis took my picture in front of it.
Here I am with my induction orders from Dr. Collins. I'd wished the envelope wasn't sealed because I wanted to see what it all contained.
I think there was actually a tree across from the hospital as well, but it just looks like a blurry light. I was freezing. And contracting. And ready to go in. We had to go through the ER because of how late it was. I didn't even remember how to get to labor and delivery through there but Travis did. We passed 4 people in the ER hallway that had the worst B.O. I have ever smelled in my life. Travis, in his non-pregnant state, even gagged. I am VERY sensitive to smells during pregnancies. I'd switched Sage's shampoo no less than 3 times because I swore her hair didn't smell clean. I was told by many that it was just me.
And there we were. Travis may have remembered how to get here, but he didn't remember how to open the doors. He was pushing buttons on the side until I just reached for the handle and opened it. :) It was a surreal feeling--being there again.
Even more surreal was when they took my papers and immediately led me to a room, which was the same room I had Jaggar in. I changed into their gowns that 4 of me could have fit into and sat on the bed. They came in shortly after and apologized, saying we'd have to go next door because the phone jack was messed up in that room. Bummer. Oh well. Before they came in (I think), Travis thought he could squeeze in next to me and get a self portrait. Then he went to bring our stuff in while the nurses checked me in.
They hooked up a blood pressure cuff, and monitors to measure baby's heart rate and my contractions. Then came my least favorite part: the dreaded IV. I'm going to stop telling them how much I hate it because I jinx myself every time. This was by far the worst. The nurse starts feeling my left arm, which is ideal because I'm right handed. She decides that the veins in that arm are too curvy (ironically both prior births have had the IV in my left hand) and thinks that right above my wrist on the inside of my right arm is the best spot. I draped my left arm over my face as she cleans it off and prepares to push that 18 gauge needle into the vein. She does. And starts digging around for what felt like eternity. I swear it was minutes. It felt like a bulldozer in my arm. There are two nurses in there. She says, "I know I'm right there. I hate to pull it out and start over." Moves needle more. She says to the other nurse, 'You wanna try?" She goes, "I'm no better than you are. You've almost got it." At this point, I'm sweating again. I need a drink. Like 10 minutes ago. She's still moving that around. I'm like,, "Oh my god, you're going to have to take that out." Then the other nurse says, "Awww, get out. The vein blew." Instant nausea. I start taking heavy, deep breaths because I'm going to puke. They put a tiny tray in front of me while apologizing. I said, "I'm going to need a minute. And I need a drink." She brings a sprite. Travis comes in with some of our things, and I'm trying to tell him the story with my glare under the cold washcloth that's now on my head. It took several minutes for me to recover. Okay, so they're going to try it again. This time, the other nurse is going to give it a go. It's going on 1:00am at this point. With Jaggar, I was like in business by 12:15. So this nurse looks at the left hand and also thinks the right looks better. The nurse that blew the first vein goes, "Hold my hand and squeeze it as hard as you want since I did that to you." Hmmm....Of all places, where does she decide to put this one? In between the KNUCKLES of my pinky and ring finger. Not even kidding. It was such an awkward place that it looked like the needle was going to pop through the skin. Then I've got IV tubing wrapped all through my fingers, as well as surgical tape holding my fingers tight. Then they ask me to sign things. It was laughable at that point, but at least it was done. The nurse said, "That must've not been bad because you didn't squeeze my hand a bit." I was thinking, "What would that have done?"
When I went to his office that afternoon, Dr Collins had told me that the plan was to get pitocin started when I got there and for me to sleep from about midnight to 7 am. In a perfect world. After all of that, Travis and I turned the tv on. He, of course, started eating, while I was denied anything but clear liquids, but I didn't mind. Sprite was all that I could have wanted at that time. Dr. Collins allows his patients to get the epidural from the get go if they choose. The nurses checked me again because I'd told them about that membrane sweep he'd done and how I didn't know if I was in labor or not. She said I was a loose 1 but still not effaced at all, so we had a long way to go...but 3rd baby, who knew? I didn't feel like I needed the epidural at that point, and ever since I had Sage, I don't take pain medicine because it makes me crazy.
I hooked my ipad up their wi-fi as we heard baby boy's heartbeat softly fill the room. You can see that here. Sleep sounded nice but it was out of the question. The nurses came in all night. I was contracting but I didn't feel like it was enough to warrant an epidural. I was watching my contractions on the monitor, seeing how high they were because some of them hurt. Each time the nurses did anything, they had to type it up on the computer beside me because charting is all digital now. Lab techs came by to take blood. And my blood pressure kept getting too low and making an alarm go off. Each time, that alarm didn't go off until a nurse fixed it. It happened all night. They even reset the blood pressure cuff to be set to alarm lower than normal because I said mine is normally lowER, but it still kept going off. At times, it seemed like it had to be off because I felt fine, but the readings were so low that I would have almost had to have felt sick if it was accurate. I know this because that happened later.
Then they decided a pulse ox would be good to add to my right hand as well. I sent this pic to Heather Varvell because we are always quoting Elf to each other with the caption, "My finger has a heartbeat."
RMC is now what they call the first baby friendly hospital in Alabama. I do want to give them major props for their care. I think from start to finish that it was excellent. At one point in the night, the nurse came in and said, "Your baby is beautiful." I said, "Huh?" She said, 'We have 5 women on the floor in labor, and your baby is the only one whose heartbeat has not wavered or gone down a bit. He's just perfect. All of the others are all over the place tonight." Always nice to hear.
That bottom semi flat line was my contractions. I didn't realize how high that would get. From what I felt with just the slight waves, I cannot IMAGINE feeling those intense lines. More on that later.
Travis, always the photographer.
Check out that crazy light from the pulse ox.
Now all we (Travis) could do was go to sleep and wait. It turned out to be a very long night for me. The morning would be soon enough though. I watched the clock all night, knowing Dr Collins would be there between 7 and 7:30 am to break my water, and I was just waiting to page that anesthesiologist.
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