And for those not interested, feel free to skip on over this one. :) Anyways, so here's how little Lincoln was born: It was Thursday 3 December and I still had 10 days until he was due. Since Boozle came 1 day late, we figured we had at least 10 days and since it was so close to Christmas, I had every day planned out by the minute. (We were going to go to the City on Saturday to check it out the Christmas festivities, to the Post Office on Friday to mail Christmas packages, etc...)
Thursday evening T had to work late so after I put Boozle to bed, my evening was filled with wrapping gifts, hanging pictures in the guest room, and getting the guest room more in order for my mom who would be coming to help out the next Friday. Ironically, on Thursday many people said things like: "The countdown has begun", "Could be any day now" etc... and I kept saying, "No, we still have at least a week". As I was wrapping gifts, I noticed that my water might have broken. With Boozle, it broke at the end of labor and was a huge pop and gush so this miniscule amount of fluid had me skeptical. T came home and asked why I wasn't wearing pants as I hung pictures and I jokingly said, "My water might have broken, but I'm not sure." He was incredulous and said, "What?!? How will we know?" And I said, "You can never know. Even doctors don't know. There's a lab test where you put the fluid on a slide and look at it microscopically and if it looks like fern leaves, it's amniotic fluid, but it's not 100% accurate". To which he responded, "Well, how can we do that test?" And I said, "I can do it, but we don't have a scope". His response was, "Well, let's go buy one!" Needless to say, he was a little worried. I did a bit of research and discovered that if you lie down, the fluid leak should get heavier because the baby's head moves out of the way so I lied down for a bit, fell asleep, and had no more fluid leaking so I figured it was just a false alarm.
Fast forward a few hours to 2am when I was awakened to the sound of T snoring and some cramping pain. I woke him up, said "I might be in labor and you're snoring so turn over".r He turned over and went back to sleep. I went downstairs to sit on my exercise ball and see if this was real labor. After many contractions, I tweeted, "I think I'm in labor peeps. Oh no", sent an email to my mom, and tried to go back to bed, counting every contraction. At 6 I knew this was it, so I woke T and let him know. I got in the shower and he started timing contractions, calling our Boozle backup plan, and the midwife. By 7, Boozle was gone to our friend's and we were on our way to the hospital.
Last time the labor went really quickly and so we didn't want to wait too long and have to drop him off and be too late, etc... and especially since it was considered high risk because my c section incision is low vertical instead of transverse. So we went to the hospital when the contractions were hard but not super hard and when I got there I was only 2-3 cm dilated. which at that point I wish we would've come back home but since I was in active labor and was high risk, they recommended I stay and when you're in labor you are kind-of out of it as far as decision-making so we just stayed. Since I was a high-risk VBAC, they wouldn't let me in the shower or walk around or anything. I had to be monitored the whole time, hospital policy. Having those monitors on made the contractions unbearable. They took them off for a bit while they did the hep-lock iv (which they had to have 3 people try and about 8 sticks) and at that point I felt like it was completely manageable and begged to not have to have the monitors back on. But they said there was nothing they could do about it. So at that point I couldn't do it any longer and had to have an epidural. They did it light so I could still feel each contraction but I could breathe through them and focus. so then a bit later i was 6 cm and a bit after that i felt like i really needed to push so they checked and i was fully dilated and he started coming down. We got to the hospital at like 7 or 7:30 and he was born at 11:51 so it wasn't too long, luckily. The pushing was completely intense and I was so happy that i could feel it and control myself. He came out after prob 20-30 mins of pushing and they put him right on my chest and let the cord finish pulsating and then T got to cut it. We felt so much more a part of it than with the section. It was completely amazing and indescribable. I now feel like I've had a baby and wasn't just a numb observer in an operating room, which is how we both felt when Boozle was born.
