Hunter Birth Story Part II

 If you missed Hunter's birth story part I, you can find that here.

This is Part II, picking up where we left off in the afternoon of November 15, 2019.

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Since we had to drive right by the hospital on our way to get the kids from school, we decided that we would both go to get the kids from school and if my labor intensified, Hubby could always drop me off at the hospital either on the way to or from getting the kids from school.

As we drove past the hospital going to get the kids from school, Hubby said, “Are you sure you don’t want me to drop you off right now?" 

 

At that point, my contractions were pretty regular, but they were only about 30 seconds in duration. I knew that for real, major active labor, they could get as long as 90 seconds long and I wasn’t feeling contractions on the top of my uterus, so I felt like we had time and I still had a long road ahead.  I was going with Hubby to get the kids.  Decision made.

 

When we were about a block beyond the hospital, I had a contraction that made me groan a little bit and Hubby made it clear in no uncertain terms that he was definitely dropping me off at the hospital on the way home.

I kind of shrugged my shoulders and said that I guess they could always triage me and send me home but they were probably just going to laugh at me because my contractions were so short in duration.  But, I realized it was probably the responsible thing to do to go get checked out but then Hubby would probably be coming back to get me to take me home after he took the kids home until my labor was more intense and the contractions were longer.

So, with a plan in place we began to text our children’s favorite babysitter to find out if she would be available to be at our home to meet the kids after school and stay for a little bit knowing that we were going to the hospital but we weren’t sure what the night would bring.

We picked up the three little kids from their school and I actually had to stop my conversations twice with two different teachers because I was having a contraction that I could not talk through.  I wasn’t making faces or groaning or anything, I just could not continue the conversation during the contraction, so I had to awkwardly hold up the finger and wait about 15 seconds of silence to continue the conversation and then explain, “Sorry about that -- just timing contractions."

We gathered our four children and headed back toward the hospital where Hubby dropped me off about 4 o’clock. Then he headed home with the four kiddos.

The nurses at admitting, did not take me to triage, they took me directly to a room and I specifically commented that I thought I would be going to triage.  I found out later that since I had two or three contractions during the process of walking from the front desk to my room the nurse knew there was no way I was going to triage.  The nurse appeased me by saying that they could always send me home, but she was thinking I didn’t need to go to triage, I should probably just go right to a room.

It took a little time to settle in, but by about 4:20, I had been examined and a midwife explained that I was 6 cm dilated, 80% effaced, with a bulging bag of water, the baby head was engaged at minus two station and they definitely were not sending me home.  Her words to me were, "You're not going anywhere, Sister!" 

 

I explained to the midwife that it was my goal to have (another) natural childbirth, which I had done three times before, but that I expressly did not want them to break my water.  My water broke with Tracey Ann to begin labor, but she was not born until almost 24 hours later.  The OB broke my water during active labor with both twins, and a midwife broke my water when I was in labor with Addallee.  In in the case of both the twins and Lee Lee, we made that decision because it would expedite my labor.  I really wanted to hang in and experience my water breaking on its own during active childbirth.  But, with that as my goal, there was no telling how long my labor would last, and I knew that.

 

Hubby had texted me several times to ask for an update and to let me know he had met the baby-sitter at home and the kids were settled in and they were excited to see her.  I texted Hubby with what the midwife had told me, and is soon as he heard 6 cm, he relaxed, stopped rushing, and asked if I wanted anything from home and if I wanted him to bring me any food.  

 

We both knew we could be in for a long evening and night of labor ahead of us.

 

To be continued...