- I shared that funny story because I'd for some reason been wanting to have a baby on April Fool's Day.
- And, one of those days I got woken up with false labor, wasn't really false labor. It just took its own sweet time getting down to business.
So I woke up around 2 on Thursday with contractions, which didn't last. I got a couple more hours of sleep before the kids got up. I had contractions about every 20 minutes or so, not that I was keeping track. I just figured, more false labor. Since it was spring break, and I'd been promising them a trip to the airplane museum all week, I decided it would be better to get out than stay home and be grumpy all morning. So, we headed out.
The kids had a great time while we were walking around. And, I flattered myself, I handled the few contractions I had very discreetly. It wasn't too crowded, so hopefully nobody noticed that here is a woman in labor, surrounded by children? Levi was a little surprised where we were when he called to check on us. (Levi spent the week in classified meetings, and so spent his break time checking for messages from me or calling to see how things were.) The girls took a turn to dance on the stage in the far building, and then they were ready to go. We stopped for sandwiches at Arby's, and we were going to eat them at the church while I entered visiting teaching numbers, but I didn't have my church keys. So we went home, had lunch, we probably watched some TV. Contractions stayed the same all day. So I didn't think I was in real labor.
Levi came home, we had dinner, I sat at the table with Nathan as he pouted about finishing homework, and timed contractions. Contractions got a little closer together but I still didn't think I was in labor. I considered calling someone to watch the kids, but, what's the point? I'm not really in labor. I tried to go to bed, but that didn't happen. Around 11 I realized I really was in labor, and then about 11:30, woah. Contractions every three minutes. Time for a hospital.
Levi's parents came really quickly, which was wonderful. By that time my water had broken and I was getting more than a little miserable. When we got to the hospital I walked part of the way to the door before another contraction hit. When Levi and a nurse came back with a wheelchair, I was crouched down, holding on to a parking lot barrier. It was a pretty good way to deal with it, I thought. It probably didn't look that way. And the best part of waiting too long to get to a hospital is, they don't make you go into the triage room. We got sent directly to a room, once they found a clean one. It was apparently (as we would see) a busy night.
Even though I had preregistered I they couldn't find my information so I had to answer a bunch of questions. When that was finally done the nurse checked to see how far I was dilated. I was hoping for at least a 6, but I was really happy with an 8. And by the time the nurse got my IV in (after only 3 tries--I have the bruises to prove it), I was pushing. Not because someone said, oh, it's time to push, or even, oh, I feel like it's time to push, but because pushing was the only way to manage the contractions.
The doctor showed up at some point, checked things over, and then left when nurse told him he needed to see how things were progressing in another room (another natural labor). I was not really paying attention at this point, but I'm pretty sure the baby's head was out and the nurses were getting ready to catch the baby before the doctor made it back into the room.
I only said, "I can't do this!" once before one last push to get the shoulders out. And instantly I felt so much better. It was wonderful. I heard somebody ask if it was a boy or girl, which was good, because I hadn't thought to ask.
Then they numbed me to sew me up, gave me some medicine to help control my bleeding, which made me feel awful for a few hours, and left us to enjoy our sweet little Peter. He was born at 1:15, almost exactly an hour after we arrived at the hospital, and was 8 lb. 9 oz, 21 inches. And, if you count the start of labor as 2 am Thursday, it was just short of 24 hours of labor.
