I went to St. Joseph's Hospital for all of my ultrasounds. This was also where I planned to deliver. As I was nearing a week past my due date, nothing was happening, so my doctor scheduled me for a non-stress test at 8:00 am on October 11. This test consists of an ultrasound for a visual inspection of the baby and also monitoring him by the fetal monitor while I laid still for 30 minutes. Upon completion of this test, the nurse explained that while the baby was doing fine, my amniotic fluid was very low. She told Kyle and I to go back to the waiting room while she called my doctor to see how he wanted to proceed. We were sitting in the waiting room for almost an hour without hearing anything. Finally, I went up to the receptionist to ask if she could find out what we were supposed to be doing. Turns out the nurse had talked to my doctor right away but just forgot to come talk to us. My doctor wanted me admitted right away to be induced!
All of the sudden I was so nervous. Induced?! What?! I'm just glad that he admitted me immediately instead of saying "Come back tomorrow." I would have been a wreck. So we went upstairs to labor and delivery and started the paperwork. There were no rooms available at the time, so when we were finally ready to get started, I was put into a recovery room. The pitocin (the induction medicine) was started around 11:00 am. During this time, my mom was frantically trying to get a hold of me. She knew that I had the test at 8:00 and since she had not heard from me, she was starting to freak out. We decided not to call anyone until we were settled. Well, she called my doctor's office, who in turn paged my doctor, which finally got the message to me to call her. So, we did. My dad came up to the hospital pretty soon after that. We drove Kyle's car to the hospital -- you know, the one without the car seat. And do you think we brought my hospital bag with us? Um, no. My dad took Kyle's car back to our house, picked up my car, and grabbed my bag. He didn't stay too long as nothing interesting was happening.
Eventually, I was put into my own room. I don't think I felt a contraction until around 4:00. I was doing fine. My only complaint was that I was hungry. I was not allowed to eat since I was on the pitocin. My parents came back to the hospital in the evening and stayed for a little while. But still, nothing was really going on. The doctors decided to stop the pitocin around 7:00 since I wasn't progressing as quickly as they would like. They let me eat dinner and get some rest.
The next morning, October 12, they restarted the pitocin at 6:00 am. By 11:00, I was ready for that epidural! I was having back labor and I was getting pretty uncomfortable. Unfortunately, the anesthesiologist was with another patient at the time. They gave me a dose of Stadol to tide me over. This completely knocked me out. Kyle said that he could see on the monitor that I was having some pretty bad contractions and I didn't even move. I guess my parents came in and had a whole conversation with Kyle and I didn't hear a word, or even realize that they were there. When the anesthesiologist finally came in, he even had Kyle sign the consent because I was in-and-out while he was explaining the risks. I don't even remember getting the actual epidural. So that worked out really well because I was very nervous about it.
So everything was sunshine and roses for the next few hours. Around 2:00, I felt a little strange. I told Kyle to call the nurse so that they could come check me. When she finally came in, I knew it was time to push. She told me to just hang on for a little while longer, since they weren't ready yet. Um, what? I was READY! Finally, they let me go ahead and push. Thanks to the epidural, I could not hold my legs up. They felt like they weighed a ton each. Thankfully Kyle helped with one, but the nurse was mean and made me deal with the other one myself. That nurse was so not nice; she kept yelling at me and telling me I was doing it wrong. Um, sorry, I've never had a baby before. Eventually, my doctor came in, got dressed, and took over.
In all, I only pushed for about 45 minutes and he was out. Peyton David Moreau was born at 3:12 pm on October 12, 2007. He was 20 1/2 inches long and weighed 6 lb 14 oz. The nurses had to whisk Peyton away because there was a little meconium and they wanted to make sure that he hadn't ingested any. He didn't and was perfectly healthy!
I finally was able to hold my baby about 30 minutes later. He was just so tiny and perfect.
We were on cloud 9! Just please excuse my hair...
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