Austin's Birth Story!

Woke up with pretty intense back pain/labor at 5:45 am on 12/15 which steadily progressed to contractions in the front around 12pm. Back and front labor contractions got intense enough to where it was hard to walk around by 2pm so we put our stuff in the car and headed to Dupont Hospital praying that this was for real and not false labor!! Andy had a half day so he had been home since 12:30pm. :)

We were admitted into Labor & Delivery triage at 2:14pm and I was 2cm dilated and 50% effaced. The monitor showed contractions every 2-4 minutes apart and Austin was tolerating them well. Dr. Lorenc was called and updated on my status (he wasn't on call that night :( . The nurse decided to have us walk to see if I would continue to progress. This is standard...but was it was hard to walk while having such bad back labor pain! (hopefully the second baby doesn't do that to me) So we walked for 30ish minutes and then I was checked again and found to be still 2cm so they left me on the monitor for 15 minutes to monitor Austin's heart rate and my contractions and then I had to get up and walk for another 25 or so minutes. After this Dr. Lorenc was called again to be updated and he decided to let the on call doctor come in, examine me, and determine what to do since it was after hours. She (Dr. Thomas) decided to admit me since my contractions continued to be 2-4 minutes apart and I was in quite a bit of pain.

I was admitted into my room at 5:30pm. An IV was started. I got my epidural at 6:30pm. I did not do as well with the epidural going in even though they numbed the spot. You can still feel it or at least the pressue of it. It was very hard to stay still and I was crying quite a bit which didn't help matters! Then I had to lay on one side for a few minutes and then the other side to spread out the medication. Also had to keep rotating sides every hour or so to keep the epidural effective. Didn't know that you had to do this with an epidural but it makes sense.

The nurse then broke my water at 6:45 pm...which was painless but kinda weird since small amounts of amniotic fluid would leak out with contractions! I was 3cm when they broke my water and 70% effaced. My parents were then allowed to come in and visit. :) My mom couldn't believe I was about to talk through my contractions and text people. Texting was a nice distraction because I still felt a lot of pressure! At 9pm I was 4cm. At 10pm I was 5cm.

Sometime after 10pm I was feeling increasing amounts of pain but didn't say anything because I figured it was part of the labor experience. Finally asked my nurse about it and they called the anesthiologist back into my room. My epidural had been turned off by accident! Yikes. So he got that all taken care of and gave me a large dose of pain medicine. At first I was worried about the effect of pain meds on Austin but epidurals only numb nerves so Austin was quite protected and safe. :)

At 11:15pm I was 8cm. So...3 cm progress in one hour!! Woohoo!! At 12:30am I was 9cm. This is when we started really trying to guess when Austin would make his debut! :) At 1:30am I was 10cm! Time to push. My parents, Andys mom, and Andy's sister were cleared out of the room and a bunch of stuff was brought in along with an extra helper for my nurse.

I started pushing at 1:45am and the nurse said I was doing great but then I started to get scared of the burning pain! That hindered my pushing even though she tried to talk me through it. The on call OB, Dr. Hanson, came in and gave that area a couple shots of lidocaine to help me and then decided to just stay in the room until I delivered. Normally the OB doesn't come in until you are closer to delivering. After that it was a little more bearable to push but still an unreal kind of pressure. I was able to reach down and touch his head when it was partway out. Andy looked just once and decided that was all the more looking he would do! lol! Austin's head was facing to the side so after they delivered his head Dr. Hanson delivered one shoulder and then the other. That's when I tore..boo! He really didn't think I would but oh well...Austin is worth that extra amount of pain. Andy was an AWESOME coach and did a FABULOUS job!! I pushed for an hour and 20 minutes.

Austin came out screaming at 3:03am! Andy cut the cord! They placed Austin on my chest for a minute before taking him to the warmer bed to be assessed and dried off. He weighed 8lbs 2oz and was 20 inches long. Could not believe he was so big! He is perfect and I am so in love with him. He is a great combination of the two of us. :)