World's Fastest Labor

We sure did get a special Christmas gift this year! Anna came early!! Although, I kinda had a hunch all along that she'd be here before the holidays. A mother knows, right?

I sure do have an interesting story to tell. So, let me begin...

Monday - 12/12: Call the dr. office because I think I'm having contractions. They hooked me up to the fetal non-stress test machine. Contractions are 6 minutes apart. Checked me - 3 cm. Told me to go home but would probably be this week when I had her. I called work and let them know that I was done.

Tuesday - 12/13: Stayed at home and monitored contractions. Very inconsistent, but started to get a little more uncomfortable. Contractions were 5 to 10 minutes apart all day.

Wednesday - 12/14: Regular dr. appt - still 3 cm, contractions still 5 to 10 minutes apart. At about 8 PM, I noticed they were starting to get consistent so I started tracking them. 5 minutes apart consistently for 3 hours. So, off to the hospital I go at 11 PM. Get hooked up, contractions changed back to 5 to 10 minutes apart and still 3 cm.

Thursday - 12/15: Lost my plug in the hospital right before going home but still sent home from hospital at 2:45 AM. At home for 20 minutes and my water starts to leak! And contractions were like 2 minutes apart and BAD!! OMG! Back to the hospital 30 minutes after getting back home.

Get to the hospital at 4 AM and my water breaks for real in the elevator as we were going up to the room. Got hooked up and checked again. 5 cm (in not even 2 hours!) and contractions were like 2 to 3 minutes apart. BEGGING for epidural but can't get it yet because I needed an entire bag of fluids in me and my bloodwork had to be checked first. (::rolling my eyes::)

At about 5:30 AM in was in PAIN. With no epidural. WHERE IS THE ANESTHESIOLOGIST!?!?! Tried to get up and use the bathroom and realized that I should be pushing instead. Get back to the bed, get checked - at 10 cm and the nurse yells into the hallway "COME SET UP A TABLE NOW!!!!"

Uh, excuse me, I still don't have an epidural. Thank goodness Dr. Markley (who I LOVE) was on call and in the hospital. Because if she wasn't, then Anna would have been delivered sans-doctor.

Ready for the big one? Anna was born at 5:45 AM in 3 pushes from 1 contraction. Oh, and no epidural. Did I say that already?

I felt like a rock star. Mainly because I only pushed for 30 seconds. Literally. If I knew 100% that my next child would be born in such a short amount of time, then yes, I'd do it naturally a hundred times over. But, there is no guarantee of that. I also have a brand new respect for women that voluntarily choose to have a natural delivery. Especially because they have no idea if their labor will last for 5 minutes or 9 hours. So, next time, we will just have to wait and see

After having one child with drugs and one without, I do wonder now what the after effects of a labor with drugs are. For example, we were home for 2 days before I felt like Caroline was for real nursing and actually getting any milk. But on the other hand, Anna nursed 20 minutes after being born for about 30 minutes. And I knew she was getting milk because she's a messy eater and had it everywhere. (Plus the nurses in the nursery told me that she was spitting up "the good stuff"!)

Wally reminds me how proud of me he is. And that makes me smile. I know that I'm bragging about something that hundreds of thousands of women choose to do. But, this was not my choice and was out of my control and that was hard to wrap my head around. But, I did it. And I did it damn good, to.

PS - as we were checking out of the hospital, we spoke to the nurse that delivered Anna - the one that kept putting off the epidural...and she confessed that she knew from the minute I returned to the hospital that it was too late for an epidural. I'm actually really glad she didn't tell me at the time because I probably would have passed out.