Asa's arrival, part one

So as y'all know, our little Bean wasn't due for another 4 weeks... We had made our way up to M.'s parents for a family shower, with the blessing of our OB team at home. (We were also planning to spend this coming week on Block Island, and I know Beth is breathing a HUGE sigh of relief!)

Thursday morning, M. decided that we should go out on a date night. So we went up to Saratoga Springs, about 20 minutes away, and had a wonderful dinner, and then went to Caffe Lena, one of the pillars of the folk circuit - for me, almost a place of pilgrimmage. We'd only been there about 10 minutes when M. suggested we go home. Now, she'd been having "practice contractions" for about three weeks, but these were a little more painful and a little more regular. We called our doctor in Attleboro, who suggested rest and a hot shower, and told us to go to the hospital here if we really felt that she was in labor. So we got back to her parents' house, and she took a hot shower... and suddenly called out. I ran, and she was standing there, looking down, and saying "I don't think that was shower water."

Into the car we all piled, and headed for the local hospital... which doesn't do deliveries, it turns out. So we were sent on to the women's health center one town over, where M. was rushed into Labor and Delivery. The nurses checked, and verified that it was, indeed, amniotic fluid. By this point, M. was having contractions about every 2-4 minutes and was 2cm dilated. Great. Her parents went home, and I promised a phone call in the morning with good news.

Silly me.

After having regular, fairly strong contractions all night, morning came and.... nothing. No progress on dilation, and soon no more contractions. (apparently, the body doesn't actually like to go into labor this early. Figures.) So we watched TV... and played cards... and walked the halls... and napped... We couldn't go home because her water had broken, but nothing was happening.

Her Mom stopped by during the day with snacks and clothes for us, and a deck of playing cards. And the nurses took super care of us, making sure we both ate. But it was a long and boring day.

The OB said he wanted to wait 24 hours after the rupture of membranes to induce, in the hope that the body would just go naturally into labor. So at the end of 24 hours, he came in with a nurse and a resident and a little tiny pill - not Pitocin. Four hours later, they came in, woke us up, and administered another dose. Three hours after that, labor resumed. But by this point (Saturday, mind you - it had already been thirty hours) M. was exhausted, and although she was really coping beautifully with some very intense contractions, she was just done.




It wasn't either of our first choice, but it made for a very happy, very much less exhausted Mommy.

Now, it's possible that the epidural slowed things down, although she hadn't been progressing very quickly even before it was administered. From about 2pm until about 9:15pm, she stayed at about 4cm. Once again, we were watching TV, playing cards, receiving texts from worried family... or, I should say, I was doing all that. M. was napping. Another looooong day.

Late in the afternoon, the fetal heartrate began to go haywire, dipping drastically and then soaring. The nurses kept M. on her left side for as long as possible, that being where the baby seemed happiest. Still, without progress, there wasn't much to do, and the warming station in the room seemed almost mocking.

It got to the point where one of the nurses mentioned the possibility of a c-section. That one really wasn't in the game plan (like any of what happened actually was in the game plan...). A few minutes later the doctor came in, looking very sober. He checked M.'s dilation and looked stunned. In 15 minutes she had gone from 4 to 9cm. It was just about the best news EVER.


He gave her about an hour to dilate that last centimeter, but finally said to just push... and she did give one mighty push, at which point the doctor realized that he wasn't wearing scrubs... oops. Suddenly, the room was abuzz - everyone scrubbing, gowning up, calling the nursery, taking places...

And that's the story of the labor. I'll tell the birth story tomorrow, but it's now 10:40pm, Asa is 24 hours old, and Mummy is fried. So:

to be continued....