On Wednesday I started having contractions off and on all afternoon and evening. After Claire went to bed they started becoming much stronger and closer together, so we called Grandpa K. to come stay with Claire. At about 1:00 AM, I hopped in the shower anticipating leaving shortly for the hospital. Wow that hot shower felt good. So good in fact, that my contractions completely stopped. So I spent the next few hours just laying around, positive that the contractions would start up again at anytime. Nope. At some point I realized that I hadn't felt the baby move in quite a while. I had some water and a snack and waited for her to wake up. But even after the food, she was still not moving. In the meantime, I had started bleeding quite heavily.
So I called the Dr. on duty at the hospital and explained what was going on. He told me that the earlier contractions were
probably just false labor. And that the bleeding was
probably just caused by pressure of the baby on my cervix. And that the baby was
probably just sleeping. That seemed like a lot of probably's for me. He wasn't concerned at all but said if I felt like something was wrong, that I could go in to monitor the baby. Intuition was telling me something wasn't right, so I woke Nate up and we headed for the hospital about 5:30 AM. They hooked up the fetal monitor and did a Non-Stress test (testing reactivity between movement and heart rate), which she failed. So then they took me to another building to do a Biophysical Profile (an ultrasound that tests movement, muscle tone, heart rate, and breathing.) Which she also failed. The Dr. (my own OB had been contacted at this point) wasn't quite sure what was going on, but decided he needed to evict little Grace.
The plan was to break my water and start Pitocin to get labor going. I was only 2 cm dilated when they broke my water at 9:45 AM. Within seconds of my water breaking, contractions started full force. No need for Pitocin. The nurse said I could have an epidural once I hit 4 cm. Well by the time the anesthesiologist was called and got me set up, I was already complete and ready to push. So the epidural never even had time to kick in. (Can I ask for a refund?) I went from 2 cm to 10 cm in only 2 hours! And my Dr. barely had time to get into his gown and gloves before that little head popped out. Literally 3 pushes and she was out! All of 5 minutes. And to top it off, no episiotomy and no tearing. Grace scored perfect Apgar scores and was screaming her little head off. The nurse even commented that this seemed like a completely different baby than the one who wasn't moving or reacting just a few hours earlier.
So even though it all started a little stressful, it ended with a perfect, healthy little girl. (And I'm quite happy with only a 2 hour labor!)