This pregnancy wasn't too bad at the end. I like to say it was because I was still puking my breakfast up almost every morning until a little after my 20 week mark. I'd had enough suffering already.
At this point (only a week before she actually came!) I was getting lot of Braxton Hicks contractions, and having some trouble with bowel movements (ugh), and just feeling overall crampy. I was a little worried baby would come early--her due date was Jan 31st, and Brian was planning a trip to Florida for a conference on the 21st. I've never been early, so we thought we'd be totally in the clear if he was back at my 39 week mark..
Belly on 1-20-2018. A little less glamorous.
The next morning, 1/21 Brian was packing up for his trip. A colleauge was picking him up at 1:30 to drive to Moline for his 4:30 PM Departure to Jacksonville FL. I had my usually cramps kick in here and there that Sunday morning, but by 10:30 they were unusually regular. While getting ready for 11:30 church I kept yelling from all corners of the house, "Brian, here's another one!!!" At first it was kind of funny, but then it started to get real. We decided to hang home a little longer and cook up some lunch before church. Brian grilled up some delicious pork chops and asparagus, and we ate lunch as the contractions kept on coming. Slowly, we grew less nervous of going into labor on the day of his trip and more willing to accept the fact that he probably wasn't going to Florida today.
So, we dropped the kids off at church to go to their primary classes, asked a friend to take them home in case this was the real deal, and walked around the church. It only took a loop around with some really nice contractions for Brian to cut the cord (pun intended) and call his boss to cancel his trip and prep him for the presentation that he'd now need him to give. Then we casually/ excitedly headed to the hospital.
I hopped into the fashion forward hospital gown & robe,got hooked up to monitors and was measured at 3 cm dilated, but 0% effaced. They sent us loose to walk the hospital grounds for an hour at the University of Iowa Hospital. Luckily it provided us with plenty of space and exploration
We particularly loved the exhibit near here that had photos of random people from Oxford, IA and told little snyopses of their lives. Some stories were funny, some terribly sad, all really interesting and the perfect distraction for waiting for baby Eleanor to come.
Baby and labor #3, We're experts now. After a couple hours of speed walking, squatting, canceling flights, and having a pretty nice time chatting we headed back to the triage room.
Our midwife on call was Jackie-Lynn--its actually Jaquelin, but that name always reminds me the blonde on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt , and she was just as pretentious as the character on the show. We were quite weirded out by her soft spoken concerns, her ignorance of personal space, and her judgmental tones. When we were talking about Brian's interview in Portland, OR she said, "Oh, so you're going to move just anywhere that HE wants to move, huh? You just have to pack up and hope you like it?"
I mean....Girl--you don't know me! She also liked to presume she knew my pain level and ever so kindly refused to check my dilation when I asked about it more than once. The absolute worst part was when I was nearing the end and ready to push and she sat right next to Brian and S I L E N T L Y stared while I made embarrassing noses and didn't feel a hint of my epidural working. The last hour was pretty rough; Jackie-Lynn broke my water when I was about 8 cm dilated, and my bag of water was cushioning (blocking) baby's head quite efficiently. My cervix went down to 4 cm, so that jump from 4 to 10 cm in an hour was excruciatingly painful, with very little rest in between contractions.
Luckily my nurses were super cool and not annoying, so they counteracted our midwife's personality flaws. Nurses are heroes, I tell you. Here we are before the anesthesiologist came in. I really didn't want another resident to do it, since I had a resident put my epidural in during Alice's birth, and she was quite honestly the worst. However, something about being in the hospital with experienced caretakers makes me feel unequipped to speak my demands and trust my instincts, and heaven forbid I hurt anyone's feelings! He only missed once, which is better than my other experience, but oh my goodness it felt like I was going to die in that awful bent over position with so much pressure in my back and hips. It also helped that this anesthesiologist had 10/10 bedside manor in comparison with the last one.
In hindsight, I was probably ready to push for the last 20 minutes, but they kept asking me if I felt pressure in my bottom and I didn't, just intense pressure in my hips so they didn't check me. Finally our special friend Jackie left, Lastacia measured me at a 10, and we pushed out a baby in 5 minutes. She cried loudly right away- which was a good thing because there was meconium in my fluid so they wanted to make sure her lungs were working well. She was beautiful, and BIG for 10 days early!
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