The birth

It starts like this:

I woke up at 5am READY TO GO! I showered and packed our last minute hospital items and left at about 6:10am to get gas and make it to the hospital by 6:30 for induction. I had been told by my doctor and her nurse to be there at 6:30, but the L&D nurse had told me 7:00 on the phone the day before. I didn't know which one was accurate, so to be safe, I arrived at 6:30.

As I pulled in the parking lot at about 6:25, I recieved a phone call from one of the nurses at the hospital saying "I'm not sure if you've left yet to come to the hospital yet, but we just filled our last bed, so we're gonna have to put your induction on hold." My heart sank and I told the nurse that I had just pulled in the parking lot, so she put me on hold, then came back on the phone and told me to come on in and they would clear a bed for me. Phwew! Good thing I went in at the earlier time, otherwise I wouldn't have been in the parking lot and may not have been induced that day. When you're that ready and excited to have your baby and family has taken the day off work and everything is arranged so perfectly, it would be devastating to be put on hold.

So we waited in the waiting room for about 45 minutes for them to move someone out and clean my room. While we were waiting, one woman walked in in labor and I started to get really worried that she would get my room, but somehow they were still able to fit me in.

As soon as I got in my room I quickly put my hospital gown on and sat my naked butt on the bed to "mark my territory" so there was no kicking me out.

At 7:30 my nurse started my IV and began infusing fluid rapidly to raise my BP so that I could have an epidural as soon as I wanted one (epidurals can lower BP). She also started a dose of ampicillin for the GBS and the pitocin. She started the pitocin at 2ml/hr and said she would raise it by 2ml/hr each hour until I was having contractions 3 minutes apart and go to a maximum of 20ml/hr.

I didn't really have any contractions for the first hour. At 8:30 my doctor broke my water and checked me - I was 5cm dilated. When she broke my water I only felt a little trickle every now and then because her head was already so well engaged and was blocking any kind of gush.

My nurse also turned up the pitocin to 4ml/hr at this time. I immediately started having strong contractions every 2-3 minutes. Once I felt these contractions, I knew then that all the "contractions" I'd been having for the past month in "pre term labor" must have just been braxton hicks that for some reason were regular and looked like strong contractions on the monitor, but they were definitely not the real thing. This will be good to know for the next pregnancy.

My doc and nurse said I could have the epidural whenever I wanted because I was already 5cm, but I wanted to wait and have regular contractions for a while to at least get my body on a roll because I was worried that the epidural might stall my labor. I lastd one hour. The contractions were getting very intense and making my whole body shake and cry.

At 9:30 I said "okay, that's enough" and pressed my nurse call button for my epidural.

She sat me up on the side of the bed and I noticed that I had a giant bubble on my arm- my IV had infiltrated. So, she had to turn off the pitocin while she quickly put in another IV before the anesthesiologist came in. This worked out really well because I was worried about having to hold still through a contraction while the epidural was being put in. I was having to almost uncontrollably rock and sway through every contraction, but because the pitocin was temporarily turned off, I did not have a single contraction while the epidural was being put in.

The anesthesiologist was excellent. I was thinking it would hurt pretty bad, but I didn't feel a thing! I felt the "bee sting" of the lidocaine, but then I didn't even know he had put the epidural in when he said "okay all finished". I really felt NOTHING, and he put it in very quickly.

At 9:45 I laid back down and he said that the contractions would gradually imporve and I should have full relief within 15 minutes. The pitocin was turned back on and I had two contractions that I could tell were improving and I was starting to relax.

Then at 10:00, I was waiting for that "full relief" but everything started to change. Suddenly I was no longer feeling the contractions as they had been, but I had intense pressure/pain in my butt. I was worried that the epidural hadn't worked, but instead had changed the location of the pain. I said to the nurse that it felt like I had to poop really bad. She gave me a worried look and decided she should check me.
I was fully dilated and her head was just a little over a fingertip away, and it was already time to push. I couldn't believe it, and was glad I had gotten my epidural just in time. It's been theorized that the epidural is what made me dilate so quickly because it made me relax enough to let things progress, but I also wonder if I was already in transition before the epidural and I got it just in time. Either way, I know that I'll ask for my epidural right away with my next baby, because dilating 5cm in one hour was really fast for a first baby. One nice thing about being ready to push immediately after getting the epidural is that I never needed to have a urinary catheter.
At 10:12 I began pushing with the nurse to see how fast things would happen. Apparently I had the perfect epidural because I could still move my legs completely and they never went numb, they just tingled. I couldn't feel the pain of the contractions, but I could feel tons of pressure and had the urge to push each tme. Each push made progress and once we were getting close, I had to stop pushing because my doctor couldn't be found. Let me tell you, it is very difficult to not push with that kind of pressure barreling down. Eventually my doctor was found in the middle of performing a C section. She finished up and then came into my room joking about how fast I had progressed. I did a few more pushes and could feel some of the pain and burning of giving birth which combined with the pressure was pretty uncomfortable, so I can't imagine feeling that without an epidural. As her head was almost out, they asked if I wanted to bring the mirror back over so I could see (I had been using it early on), but I was so uncomfortable at that moment that I said "no, just get her out". My doctor was trying to let my skin stretch out slowly to minimize tearing, but the baby was coming out on her own even without me pushing. My doctor asked for a tiny push and all I did was lift my head up off the bed and she popped out rapidly (So much for stretching).She didn't have a cone head at all because she came down so fast that she didn't really have time for her head to sit there and mold into shape, which could have reduced my tearing.
She was born at 11:13, one hour and one minute after the first push. She came out screaming and had apgars of 8, 9, 9. Her cord was loosely wrapped once around her neck, but didn't seem to affect her. I had really expected to have a large baby because of the gestational diabetes, but thanks to my well controlled diet, she was a very average 7lb 5oz and 18.5 inches long and had no blood sugar issues at birth.
I didn't even know when I delivered the placenta because apparently it just fell out on it's own. My doctor said I had a "garden variety grade two tear" in two spots and a few hemmeroids from the pushing. My excellent epidural made it so I didn't feel any of the stitches being put it. Once she finished stitching, something started to bleed and she had to go in and stitch some more, but it was all under control in just a matter of minutes.
It was all very calm and controlled with minimal pain and I don't think I could've asked for a better delivery. I feel very lucky with how well it went. Not only was it smooth for me, but the babys heart rate never dropped and she tolerated the whole thing very well.
I was pretty sore the next several days and couldn't really sit up or stand for very long, but she is worth every bit of it.
With my positive GBS status, doctors like to get two doses of ampicillin infused, but getting at least one dose in four hours befoe delivery is sufficient. If I had made it to 11:30, she would have been "all clear" but because she was born 17 minutes before that deadline, she had to have her blood drawn and be on "sepsis protocol" to watch for infection. We had a minor scare with some bacteria found in her blood that bought her some IV antibiotics, but it turned out to be a skin contaminate and she was cleared and able to come home with us.