We Welcome Rita
I had been wishing labor pains on myself for weeks but now that they had arrived for real, I was second guessing my sanity in wishing for this. It was 3:00 am. The first one woke me up at 2:07 am but I was able to go back to sleep in-between them. At 10-15 minutes apart now, it seemed more sleep was unlikely so I tried to just lay there, relax, and breath through them. The fact that there was 0 snow on the ground even though the day before they were calling for a foot of snow today helped me relax immensely. My deep breathing woke Marc and he did his best to make me more comfortable. Knowing we still had hours to go, I took a long shower so that Marc could go back to sleep and get his rest at least. Over the next 3 hours, I walked the house, did one last load of laundry, got my bag ready, read motivational mantras, created a spreadsheet on my phone to record my contraction times (I am a big data collection nerd), and made a mental resolution to relax with the contractions to let them do their thing rather than panic in pain like I have historically done. When Finn got up at 6:00 am on the dot, like usual, my contractions were about 8 minutes apart so I was able to hide my pain for him and enjoy the morning with him for a little while. Andrew and Isaac were at their dad’s house this week so I texted them to let them know they were likely to have a sister at some point during the day. Their response was, “Noice.” 😊
School had already called cancelling school for the day due to the forecasted state of emergency snowfall later in the day and Marc’s work had already called it a snow day as well. So, all we had on the agenda was to have a baby!
At 7:30 am contractions were less than 5 minutes apart so my dad came down to pick up Finn. At 8:45 am I called the hospital and they said I was cleared to go into triage to see how I was doing. On the way in, I told Marc I was worried they would send me home. The contractions slowed a bit on the drive and I surprised myself by how calm and collected I was in-between each contraction. Then, one would hit and I was glad to be on our way.
Triage was quiet. I walked in the door at about 9:15 am. They said I was the first of the day which I took as a good thing. My belly was strapped in for a non-stress test to see how Rita was handling the contractions that were 2-3 minutes apart and I was allowed to stand for the 1,000 questions pre-admittance game in-between contractions. I was only 3 cm dilated at about 10:00 am. Tiffany, the midwife, said she would feel more comfortable waiting an hour and rechecking me before admitting me to make sure I was actually making progress. She was worried an epidural would slow things down knowing I wanted to have one for delivery. I said okay, asked to use the bathroom, my water broke as I walked across the hallway and off to labor and delivery we went at about 10:30! I told them I go fast once my water breaks and I wasn’t joking. I asked for the epidural ASAP. It was placed about 30 minutes later (11:15 am or so) and I was SO happy to have it. I was ready to push at 11:30 am but the midwife was in another delivery so I managed to wait a half an hour, blowing air and appreciating Marc’s encouraging words until Tiffany could get back to me. I only pushed once and Rita was in my arms. Our precious little girl was finally here! My nurses were amazing. A huge thank you to Megan and Lacey who will most likely never read this. They were amazing. A wonderful experience from start to end (minus the excruciating pain, shots, blood draws etc. 😊)We are so grateful for an uncomplicated pregnancy, “easy” delivery and 4 healthy children. We do not take those things for granted. <3We love you Rita!
Here are a few photos from our hospital stay.
