Friday, January 6th, 2012

Friday morning, January 6^th, I got up early to take my 3^rd 24-hour urine collection to the hospital lab so that the results would be available for my 3 pm OB appointment.  Friday afternoon Jarrod and I headed to the OB appointment with hopes of induction looming in the near future.  I was somewhat convinced I wasn't going to be sent to the hospital that night, so I left my hospital bag at home.  Jarrod would be able to run home for our stuff if I was sent to labor hall.  My appointment that afternoon started with a non-stress test where baby was looking good and I had one mild contraction that I didn’t really feel but showed up on the monitor.  My blood pressure, however, was 156/110 and I had been complaining of a headache for days.  After the non-stress test, I had to wait for what seemed like forever for the OB to come talk to me and get my urine test results.  My protein level was at 311… finally passed that magical 300 line that would get me sent to labor & delivery.  The OB wasn’t very promising about inducing that night but would only say that it was up to whoever was there at the hospital.  She called the midwife on duty as we were leaving the office. 

When I arrived at labor & delivery, my favorite midwife was there and had already made the decision to induce me before I arrived.  The admission nurse was ready for me and I got the last available room on the unit… they were super busy on Friday!  I arrived at around 4:45 pm and was admitted, an IV started (after several painful tries) with fluids and magnesium sulfate, and my midwife ordered the nurses to get me some dinner!  After I ate, I was checked and was at least soft and a fingertip dilated and I had my first dose of Cytotec at around 8 pm, second dose at 2 am Saturday morning.  At 8 am Saturday morning, the OB coming on for the next 24 hours checked me and discovered my cervix was thinning well and I was 2-3 cm… he felt it was time to start pitocin and skip another cytotec dose.  Pitocin was started after I had a chance to get up and brush my teeth, wash my face and eat a small breakfast of Jell-O (yum!).  The next several hours would pass uneventfully with me not feeling much of anything yet… I was not too impressed with pitocin, as it wasn’t doing much for me!  At around 2:30 that afternoon, the OB came back in to check me and I hadn’t changed so he decided it was time to break my bag of water.  It didn’t take long after that to really start feeling the contractions!  The numbers on the monitor weren’t any larger than they had been earlier, but I was feeling a lot more pain!  I asked for an epidural right away, not knowing how long it would take for them to get to me.  The anesthesiologist was quite prompt and I had my epidural in by 4ish I think.  The process of getting the epidural did not go well for me… as I was sitting up and leaning over the table, I started to not feel well and informed the nurse and my husband that I was going to pass out… the nurse replied, “no you aren’t, you are doing fine” at which point I was out!  They said I was only out for 5 seconds or so but it felt like an eternity to me and was enough to shake up the nurse and the anesthesiologist!  Once the catheter was in my back and the meds started, my blood pressure crashed down to around 80/60 and it took quite a while (an hour or so maybe) for them to get me stable again.  From that point until about 9:45 pm, I felt no pain but was now spending most of my time on my left side and on oxygen just to be safe.  I started feeling some pressure and by 9:58 was starting to push.