Birth Story Addallee Marigold -- Part 2

A little after midnight, Hubby and I left for the hospital, on exactly my 40 week due date.

Hubby is friends with several Rifle County Police Officers so sent out a few texts to determine who was on duty at the time, and let them know that we were headed to the hospital.  On the drive, we passed several police cars in the median while going well over the speed limit and no one pulled us over for speeding.  I guess news travels fast.

When we got to the hospital, they heard it was my fourth baby, and that the contractions were less than five minutes apart, and they never took me to a triage room, they just admitted me right away.  But when they checked my progress I was not very far along.  If I were a first time mom, they would have sent me back home -- I don't remember exactly but I was maybe 2 or 3 cm dilated and the baby was still really high.  But, they said that they take laboring moms having their fourth babies very seriously and so they wanted me to stay awhile and see what was going to happen.

Once at the hospital, my labor slowed down.  Significantly.

This was a huge disappointment give that the twins were born less than four hours after we got to the hospital, and my good friend had her fourth baby in the car... I was very prepared for a fast labor.  Baby Number Four had her own agenda.

Hubby and I were both exhausted, and my contractions were every eight or so minutes, so we tried to rest in between, but it was frustrating because I kept thinking, I could be resting at home... I'm here to have a baby.

I got in the bathtub because that really helped when I was in labor with Tracey, but my labor slowed even more.  Now my contractions were 12-15 minutes apart.

About 7:00am in the morning the midwife checked my progress again and we were discussing the different options -- would we go home, sweep the membranes, break my water, or just continue with the status quo.  We were all very surprised to learn that I was now 6 cm dilated despite how infrequent the contractions were.  The baby was still really high, which the midwife speculated might be because my previous pregnancy was twins, and my uterus was allowing this one baby plenty of room.  She wasn't being pressed down into the birth canal the way Tracey Ann was.  

 

We decided to continue with the status quo.