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| I don't have a picture from this stage of labour, so you get my weekly pic from the night before instead |
I have a thing with hearing about births ever since I had Parker. I like to know all the details because I love how every story is different. And although there were some similarities between Parker's birth and Cooper's birth, overall they were very different. Birth stories sometimes sound scary to people who haven't given birth. Because there is this fear of the unknown. But they are truly beautiful, regardless of the way that you give birth, whether you need the epidural, or choose to go drug free. Whether your baby is born naturally or by c-section. It's an amazing experience that is so individual to each person.
Saturday was our 5 year anniversary. So we dropped Parker off at my parents and went out for supper. We joked about how I could have a baby on our anniversary, but since it was so late in the day it was unlikely, which was good, because I didn't really want to share our anniversary with a birthday. We went to the Lancaster Smokehouse, which specializes in smoked meat. The meal was good and we ate a lot and were very full.
Parker stayed at my parents overnight and Ryan and I went home. At about 2 in the morning I woke up feeling really sick. I started to go to the bathroom a lot and eventually was throwing up as well. I went to the bathroom constantly over the next little bit and between 2 and 10am threw up 6 times. I wasn't sure if it was a bug or food poisoning. I did call my midwife at one point just to check in if there was anything special I should be doing. I didn't know if they would want me on IV if I got too dehydrated. My midwife is the same one who delivered Parker and she didn't even read the page, she just called me and asked if I was having contractions. She's so funny, she was only on call for one more day and was hoping that I would have the baby.
At around 1:45 I was overall feeling better, but noticed that I was a bit crampy. It was just like light period cramps, and I had been feeling these off and on for awhile, but it seemed more frequent than normal. So I ran myself a bath to see if they would stop. Although relaxing, I kept getting them while in the bath. So I started to time them. I wasn't even sure that they were contractions because it was so light and not really painful, just uncomfortable. Over the next little bit they got a bit more painful. They lasted about 45 seconds and ranged from 3 minutes to 4.5 minutes apart. I hadn't expected contractions to be that close together so quickly, and my midwife had been concerned that I would have a really fast labour, so I decided to call her again.
My midwife suggested that I come into the hospital to get checked out just because the contractions were so close together and to see if I was just dehydrated. So we met her at the hospital half an hour labour. On the way to the hospital, we got behind a bunch of traffic, slow drivers and hit every red light I think, and the contractions were a lot more painful. Once at the hospital, my midwife set me up on IV in triage and started to monitor my contractions. The contractions were a lot more painful now and were starting in my back and wrapping around to my belly. I was 3cm dilated when I arrived. At first she thought I was in labour. Then with the IV my contractions spaced out a bit and she thought I was maybe just dehydrated. After an hour and a half she checked me again and said I was about 4.5 cm, and I was actually in labour.
I was actually kind of happy about this. I didn't want to be sent home with these painful contractions, and at 36 weeks, 3 days, I was pretty comfortable with having the baby. Where a lot of people would likely be freaked out, this was over a week longer than I had been pregnant last time, so I kind of knew what to expect and knew that this baby would be a lot better off than Parker was already.
So I was being admitted and started to make the "long" walk down to the delivery room...
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