Early labor

I know I said that my last post would be the last post of the year, but after delivering my beautiful baby girl, I just had to document my birth story somewhere so that I won't forget all the details.

September 20, 2010 was my due date. Like many other pregnant women, I anticipated delivering my baby well before this day. In fact, out of the handful of women who I knew that were pregnant this year, only one gave birth beyond her due date. So that was my mindset this entire pregnancy. I was going to give birth before Sept 20. Maybe a day early. Maybe a week early. But definitely early. I'm sure you can guess what happened. September 20th came, and no baby.

I had my 40 week ob/gyn appointment on Monday, September 20, and was hoping to hear some good news. For the past month, I'd experience no contractions and therefore my cervix was closed shut. At my 39 week appt, I was closed shut, and since I had no contractions since then, I had low expectations that at my 40 week appointment anything would change. I was checked by my ob, Dr. Parsi, and as expected, I was still not dilated. And since I was not dilated at all, I wasn't a candidate for membrane stripping. For a bit of encouragement, she mentioned that my cervix was softening, so it meant that something was happening at least.

Dr. Parsi asked me what I wanted to do at this point. She doesn't need to medically induce until 41 weeks, so if I was induced before then, it would be my choice. John and I had discussed this before my appointment and we decided that I would schedule my induction for that Friday, September 24. I was so deflated from not seeing any progression in my pregnancy, and since Friday night was only 3 days before she would induce, we didn't feel bad about setting an induction date. Dr. Parsi scheduled my induction with the hospital, and I left my appointment relieved that if my baby didn't make her appearance by Friday, I would definitely have her in my arms by Saturday.

On Tuesday, September 21 John and I made dinner plans with Anh Vu, a friend we hadn't seen since our 2008 wedding. We also invited our friend, Kevin, and my sister along for dinner too. We decided to go to BJs brewery for dinner since they had a nice little happy hour where their mini pizzas were half off. At this point in my pregnancy I was pretty much eating whatever I wanted. We probably ordered 8 mini pizzas, and only finished half of them. Despite being stuffed, we also ordered a pizookie (pizza cookie) for dessert. Definitely not the healthiest of meals, but I was content. I mention this because maybe all the junk food attributed to my baby coming. After dinner, we hurried home to catch one of my favorite shows "Glee."

Since John was still doing his extramural rotation at Santa Clara Valley, he went to bed around midnight, while I decided to stay up like the usual night owl I am. While watching tv I managed to eat an entire Ben & Jerry's Half Baked pint. It was yummy. I was watching Discovery Channel's "I'm Pregnant and..." series on OnDemand when around 4:40am I started getting these pains in my tummy. I just thought "Great, the baby has to be kicking me right now!" It wasn't the same feeling as her kicking me, but since the only pains I got in my tummy were from her kicking me, I just brushed it off as the same. I'd feel the pain every so often, until finally around 5am I thought to myself "maybe these are contractions."

I hobbled up the stairs to our bedroom and woke John up. I said "I think I'm having contractions, what do you think?" Then I made him touch my belly. Not even awake, John mumbled that he didn't know. After timing them for a bit, I was certain that they were contractions, but they weren't that strong. I was having contractions every 5-6 minutes, but they only lasted 20-30 seconds. After googling and searching my baby books, they all said that I was in early labor, which could last anywhere from 1 day to 1 week. I was bummed that having these contractions wasn't that serious, especially since they were uncomfortable. John decided that he wasn't going to go into work that day just in case my contractions picked up later in the day.

At 5:30am, my sister woke up for work and I told her that I was in labor. But I said this as I jumped on her bed and was just chatting. She was confused. At around 6am, my brother woke up for school and I told him I was in labor, and he replied "cool." John had already fallen back to sleep at this point. He said we'd just wait till my doctor's office opened and call them to see if we should do anything. The dr's office opens at 8am.

Promptly at 8am we call my doctor's office. No answer. We call again. No answer. We basically call them every other minute for the next 10 minutes or so. No answer. Very frustrating. Finally at around 8:30am, someone from the office picks up and John tells them that I'm having contractions, I'm 40 weeks and 2 days, my contractions are 5-6 minutes apart and (at this point) 30-60 seconds long. After (we assume) looking at my chart and consulting with my doctor, the woman said "your doctor said to go ahead and go to the hospital." Wow, really? That's it? Alright, sure.

After reading so many birth stories on The Bump and reading pregnancy books, I knew that the early labor portion is usually the longest part of labor and could last a few hours. So we took our time. We got all our things together. I took a shower. John packed the car. Eventually we headed off at 9:30am. Anytime I'm awake before 10:30am, I always want to hit up McDonalds for breakfast. So we headed to the McD's closest to the hospital and I got two egg mcmuffins and a hashbrown. I only ate 1 egg mcmuffin and hashbrown, which I wished later I ate all of it.

Finally at 10:30am we arrived at the hospital. It's a maze to get to the L&D section of Good Samaritan Hospital. John wanted to wheelchair me, but I knew I could made it. We hobbled to L&D making a few stops during contractions. We already pre-registered with the hospital, so checking in was pretty easy. I have to admit that it felt surreal. I was given Room 3, and told to change into the hospital gown.

After changing, I was checked by an L&D nurse who said I was 2 cm dilated and 80% effaced. I was shocked. Wow, it's actually starting on it's own. I knew that 2cm was really nothing though, since many women are 2 cm at their weekly appointments and nothing comes from it. But I was still in shock that my body was actually doing what it's supposed to do. The nurse, on the other hand, had to make sure that my doctor wanted to keep me admitted since I wasn't dilated very much. I kept thinking in my head "please don't send me home, please don't send me home." I'm sure my doctor knew what I was thinking because she told the nurse to keep me. Yes! And thus began my early labor.