When morning came bright and early (I didn’t get back to bed until about 6 am, never really fell asleep, and got up with the family at 7), I rolled over and told Wyatt the situation and my plan:
I was having hard contractions – I was going into labor. I wasn’t going to my doctor appointment, instead we would stay home and surprise the kids “It’s time to go to the hospital!”
I called the doctor and cancelled my appointment. Wyatt called his mom to ask her to come. Because I still was having very irregular contractions we figured we had at least until the afternoon to get to the hospital, so we all went about our morning with plans to meet up about noon to send kids to grandma’s and head to the hospital.
Just before Lois came we told the kids it was time! They were excited, but Olivia was a little bummed she had to go to grandma’s instead of come with us.
After the kids were on their way to grandma’s we gathered up the last few things needed and headed to the hospital, stopping off for lunch. My contractions were still coming very irregularly but were very painful when they came.
We got to the hospital about 2:30. I was only dilated to a 3. They watched me for an hour and I didn’t change at all, so they sent me home. They told me Dr. Hanson wasn’t available until the next day anyway.
So we went home. We visited friends. We went on a walk. We watched TV. I took a hot bath. All this time, I was having mo’ painful contractions. (Like, I’ve dilated to an 8 before and never had contractions as hard or as painful as these).
Finally, I was sitting on the bed, Wyatt was asleep, I was having another writhing contraction and suddenly there was a huge gush.
Wyatt snapped awake real fast when I yelled out that my water broke.
So, I wrapped myself up in some towels and we went back to the hospital, just three hours after they sent us home.
The first thing I asked for when we got to the hospital was an epidural. I asked the nurse to go find the anesthesiologist because I was exhausted from these contractions.
Next thing I know I’m having hard hard contractions that are one right on top of the other and lasting three or four minutes each. I’ll admit, I was mentally panicking, but still trying to be . . . reasonable externally. I just told the nurse to get the epidural, but inside I was trying HARD not to SCREAM.
And after she got me hooked up to the IV she went and got the anesthesiologist who came right away and gave me the epidural. It was probably the fastest I’ve ever gotten one. He gave me a double dose so it would kick in faster (I only had to go through two more contractions before being completely numb). I appreciated their speed. The double dose of anesthesia did make me numb up to my chest, and it was a bit uncomfortable for a couple hours after that. But I didn’t want to be too whiny, so I kept that to myself.
Anyhoo – all there was to do at that point was wait.
Wyatt left to go get a burger about 11:30 – after being reassured by the nurse he wouldn’t miss anything.
But then she decided I was ready to push . . . so I called Wyatt, and she called the doctor (who suddenly WAS available), and they both got back and I pushed . . .
And two pushes later little Nathaniel Grey Christensen was born . . . 12:23 am.
Of course I held him for the first 40 minutes or so. He pooped all over me 🙂 He wanted me to know he was mine.
He weighed in at 7 lbs 8 oz. and 20 inches long.
By the time they were weighing him and washing him, a little after 1 am, I was at about 23 hours of no sleep. I was so tired, I remember watching them weigh him and feeling sad that I wasn’t taking pictures of him on the scale and stuff (I have those pictures of all the other babies), but wondering to myself who could take the pictures since I still couldn’t stand from my epidural.
It never occurred to me to hand the camera to Wyatt (who took all those pictures of our other babies).
So, because of my exhausted, foggy brain, we don’t have very many pictures of baby Nate from those first few minutes/hours.
They finally switched my room at about 2:30, and I was cleaned up and settled in for bed at about 3 am, a little over 24 hours after getting up with my first contraction.
He is a sweet, perfect, and lovely baby.