Liam's Birth Story {Part 1}

Liam's birth story begins with where my last letter to Liam left off. I started having painless contractions every 5 minutes on Tuesday night after I got home from work. I was just sitting on the couch and noticed that my abdomen was getting firm on a very regular basis. This lasted about 1.5 hours, then just kind of fizzled away. I didn't sleep all that great Tuesday night, moving from our bed to the couch in our bedroom then finally downstairs to the couch. I had a few random contractions here and there throughout the night...slightly crampy, but still nothing to write home about.

Around 7am on Wednesday morning, I was in the process of getting ready for work, and I started having regular contractions every 5-6 minutes. Like through the night, these were only slightly crampy, but because they were occurring so regularly, I texted my boss and said that I was going to stay home for a bit and see if they progressed to anything.

need a contraction timer...there's an app for that! :)

Well, these mild, crampy contractions continued all day and all night, ranging anywhere from 4-10 minutes apart. I had my regular doctor's appointment at 1:30 that afternoon, and I had my mom drive me just in case. We even stuck one of our hospital bags in the car...I guess I was being pretty hopeful. At my appointment, I learned that I was now 2cm dilated and 80% effaced, which was definite progress from the week before. My OB stripped my membranes {a little uncomfortable and crampy, but not that bad}, and said that the best thing would just be for us to wait till I went into labor on my own. I had an appointment for this week set up just in case I didn't deliver by the weekend, but neither I nor my doctor felt like it would come to that.

trying to relax...in just a little over 24 hours from this time, we were about to meet our little man

My mom and I left my appointment, feeling a tad bit disappointed, but I was pretty happy and relieved to know that my contractions were doing something. On our way back to our house, we stopped by Wendy's where I got a frosty...I just wasn't very hungry that day. I lounged around the rest of the day, TJ and I ordered pizza for dinner {I definitely didn't feel like cooking anything}, and we relaxed in front of the TV while I continued to contract every 5 minutes or so. I decided to call the OB on call around 10pm...I knew I was not at the point where I needed to go in, but I wanted to call while it was still early in the night to get a better idea of when I should go in. I guess it was the doc in me that was trying to save another doc from a 2am phone call. She said that I should take a warm shower, try to get some rest, and see if the contractions continued or went away. She said that I should call her back if they get so bad that they stop me in my tracks or if I couldn't talk through them.

Fast forward to 2am {there was no sleep up until that point}, and I felt like they were getting strong enough that we should maybe get the rest of our stuff together. I called the doc again, she told me to go on in and that she would notify triage. I woke TJ up, he showered, I went to the bathroom where I thought my water broke, and we made the 15 minute drive to the hospital.

Once in triage, one of the OB residents came and checked me, and unfortunately, I was still only 2 cm. My water didn't break either. The kicker, though, was that my blood pressure was pretty high, so they went ahead and drew labs, checked my urine, and kept a close eye on my blood pressure. I hadn't had any problems with my blood pressure up to that point...I think it was mainly because I was pretty nervous about everything that was happening.

They had me stay in triage and gave me the option of walking around a little bit to see if I made any progress over he following two hours. TJ and I started walking the halls, but that didn't last long because my contractions started getting a lot worse. I made TJ stop at every chair or bench so that I could sit down. Only 15 minutes later, we went back up to triage and waited for the resident to come check me again. Around 6am, we found out that I had dilated to 3cm and was 90% effaced, so the stronger contractions were definitely doing something!! My labs had come back and were normal {for the most part}. They ended up admitting me - not so much because of the progress I had made - but because my blood pressure was making them nervous. It was kind of worrying me too, but in my heart I knew it was nothing more than my anxiety about everything.

So, with that, they gave me my gown, wheeled me over to labor and delivery, got me hooked up to the monitors again, and we got settled in for the long  {but wonderful} day ahead...

settled into my labor and delivery room...the calm before the storm...

Part 2 coming up soon!

{and by soon, I mean whenever Liam lets me have the time to write it!}

:)