Adam and I checked into the hospital Sunday night, the 26th at 10pm. They did a couple of checking in and medical type things. I was supposed to get some sleep, but that did not happen. Mom and I ended up sitting up all night and talking. At 6:00, the doctor's came in to start the pitocin drip. A few hours later, I was given some pain medication. At this point, I had been up 24 hours, so I was very tired and the medicine hit me very hard. I was quite drunk! My family has had a good time retelling all the stories of that day.
Long story short, labor progressed slowly. I got my epidural at 2 cm-earlier than they wanted, but contractions were happening so often even though I wasn't dilating too much, so they went ahead and gave it to me. I spent most of the day laying around out of it because of fatigue and medicine.
Being a bit spacey, as it turns out was quite a blessing. Once the doctor broke my water, it became apparent that something wasn't going well. Every time I had a contraction, Bennett's heart rate would drop. Turns out his cord was near a body part-most likely his shoulder-and each contraction would push his cord against his body, causing his heart rate to drop. The nurses kept coming in often, continually turning me from one side to the other, and monitoring his heart rate. Had I known all of this was happening, I would have been very scared.
Finally, around 5 pm, I dilated to ten and was able to begin pushing. My doctor was awesome-she did not want me to have an emergency C-section or have to use any kind of tools to get him out, which I did not want either. It took an hour of pushing, but finally at 6:22 pm, Bennett Gibson Rowe made it into the world, weighing 8 lbs 1 oz.
It was one of the longest days of my life-when it was all said and done I had been awake close to 40+ hours. Needless to say, I was delirious. But it was completely, totally, 100 million percent worth it!
