I had a doctor's appointment on April 6th - one day before my due date - with Dr. Royal. He was the doctor from my OB practice that had seen us when we had our "false alarm" at the hospital a week earlier. Basically, he checked me again, said that I was STILL not progressing despite my regular contractions for over a week, and we discussed our options for delivery.
Option 1) Getting induced. Checking into the hospital that night at 6pm to take cervical softening meds, then starting the pitocin at 7am the next morning.
Option 2) Wait 'til 41 weeks and see if anything happened over the following 7 days. If not, induction at 41 weeks.
Well, we weighed the options heavily because I really didn't want to end up with a c-section and my risk was much higher at this point because my body wasn't progressing. But, because I hadn't made any progress in 3 1/2 weeks... and after a week of exhaustive contractions, we decided to go for it. Eric and I picked up Zaxbys on the way to the hospital, and settled in for the night.
When we checked in at 6pm Dr. Royal told them to find me a "room with a view!" :) They all thought I was going to be in labor/delivery for days since I was only 1 cm dilated. They hooked me up to an IV, started my pills for the night, and gave me an Ambien (Thank You!!). We watched Biggest Loser and went to bed!
At 6:30am, Dr. Werner was on call and dropped in to check my progress. SURPRISE - nothing (1cm. 80% effaced)! He told me "don't plan on having this baby while the sun's up." At 7:30 they started the pitocin, and my new nurse checked in on me. She was the most AMAZING nurse and I was soooo lucky to have her.
9am: 1-2 cm, 90% effaced... the FIRST progress in almost a month.
11am: 2cm, 90-100% effaced.
1pm: My mom arrives, and I had just gotten checked. No progress, BUT my water broke while she was checking me. Now my contractions were getting intense and I was on the highest dose of pitocin for the next 2 hours.
2pm: Still about 2-3 cm, but at 2:30 I asked for my epidural. I couldn't talk through my contractions anymore, and they definitely had been much worse since my water broke. This was a super hard decision because I was really scared it would slow down my progress.
5:00pm: 4 cm. Shannon stopped by and my sister had just arrived from Clemson.
5:20pm: I started feeling like I had to go to the bathroom so I pushed the button for the nurse. When she got there she said that meant the baby was probably pushing down. When she checked me I was 9 cm!!! She said we'd start pushing at 6!!! YEAH!!!
So, it took from 7:30 - 5 to get to 4 cm, and then only 20 min. to get to 9! Shannon and Emily were my good luck charms!
At 5:50 I started pushing with the nurse. At 6:05 I started pushing with Dr. Royal, and at 6:19 he was HERE!
