Little did I know that I would wake up at 12:30am on August 17th with what I knew had to be real contractions. I had been feeling braxton hicks for probably over a month now and everybody had been telling me when it is a real contration I would feel it radiate from my back to the front. This is exactly what I felt. Wasn't too painful...yet. I decided to time them to see if they were consistent at all in timing. They were 10 minutes apart. I tried going back to sleep because I figured at 10 minutes apart...who knows...this could last a day or two. Could not sleep. Go figure. So, I kept timing.
Probably an hour later they were about 7-8 minutes apart. I went ahead and woke Matt to tell him I was having 'real contractions'. Right away, he became my timer. Around 3:00am I decided to call my doctor because they were about 5-6 minutes apart and we weren't sure when we should head to the hospital. At this point I had tried many things to help with the pain. Since it was after hours my doctor had to call me back...took a hour for them to call me back! By that point I told her they were consistently about 5 minutes apart. The doctor reccommended that I try to rest and do what I can until 3-5 minutes apart for 2 hours. So, here I was again trying to sleep, bathe, shower, sit, stand, relax. I told Matt I just didn't feel right and even though they weren't 3-5 minutes apart for 2 hours I felt we should head to the hospital.
We got to the hospital around 6:15ish. The nurses took me in to check me out to see if I could be admitted or if they were just going to send me on my way. By this point the contractions I could tell were getting closer together and far more painful. It felt like forever before they actually checked me out, but luckily, good news for me- I was dialated to 4cm which meant I got to stay and did not have to be sent home. I remember telling Matt over and over "I just want the epidural".
Once moved into a room, this was probably around 7:30am, nurses were coming and going preparing the room. The contractions continued to intensify. At one point I got sick- I was told it was because things were progressing so quickly. Anesthesiologist came. The epidural worked like magic. After I received the epideral I was checked again and all of us were shocked that I had dilated at that point to 7/8 cm. I thought "wow, this is all happenining a lot faster than I thought it would". The nurse said she wanted to do a quick ultrasound because she was not sure of the location of baby's head. The ultrasound showed that baby girl was breech. This was news to us. No one had predicted this. Since I was already dilated to 7/8cm things became a rush.
C-Section time. Everything went very smoothly with the c-section. It was such a whirlwind of a morning and things were moving so quickly that I didn't even really have time to think or have anything register with what was going on.
Baby Girl was born at 9:21am. Matt was able to follow her all around the room while she got poked, prodded, weighed, wiped, and whatever else they do while stitching me up. This part was very hard for me, the fact that I could not see what was going on. I got to hear my baby girl cry and knew everything was ok...and Matt did so well with following her around and taking pictures for me and then he'd run over and show me a few pictures before running off to follow her around again.
I had the shakes and was feeling a little nauseous once they were done stiching me up and were ready to wheel me back to my room so baby girl laid down by my legs. I wanted to hold her so bad. I was scared of hurting her from the shakes I had and the nausea I was feeling. We spent about 1 hour in the labor and delivery room before we were assigned a room for our stay and wheeled upstairs. During this hour we went ahead and let everybody come on back to see baby girl.
Who would have thought that baby girl would have made her grand arrival on her due date. I haven't looked it up yet, but rumor has it that only about 5% of babies arrive on their due date. Whatever the number, I was so happy to have baby girl with me. The best way to describe this day is a whirlwind...a whirlwind with a very happy ending.
Madelyn Claire Calak
August 17, 2011
9:21am
19.1 inches long
8 lbs 2 oz.
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