Long Labor and 10th Wedding Anniversary!

The baby is still not here. I'm learning to have more compassion toward women who have long drawn out labors. It's truly exhausting! This is such a different experience than I had with Blue Rock. We thought she might be coming on our anniversary and if I would have stayed at the hospital she would have! Friday night we thought my water broke. We headed to the hospital and the test came back positive. They had me lay in a bed and wanted to continuously monitor the baby's heartbeat and my contractions.  That was uncomfortable. Laying there they were a consistent 2 to 3 minutes apart. I was dilated at 2cm like Monday and about 85% effaced. However, I thought it was strange that more water wasn't coming out. I thought I'd be sitting in a puddle. I finally asked the nurse about it and she said they have gotten some false positives.  I asked if they could check again or open a new batch. She said it would be inconclusive if they had a positive and a negative. My doctor was away on family business and the doctor on-call agreed to do another kind of test like they used to. I told them that if my water hadn't broke I'd rather go home and labor there. The nurse wanted to keep me over night and induce me Saturday morning. When the old kind of test was done and came back negative I was told I could walk around a bit. I walked 30 minutes and came back my contractions were really strong at 1 to 2 minutes apart but I wasn't dilating anymore. I asked to go home. It was 1am. Finally about 1:30am they let me go and told me to come back in the morning. I was there 7 hours and nothing! It was nice to sleep in my own bed. There was no way I could sleep in the hospital bed with the monitors on my belly. My parents kept Blue Rock for the first time at their house. It was really nice of them.



Our 10 anniversary! I'm so tired here!

Saturday was our 10th anniversary. We spent our 5th at a castle in Germany and our 10th at the hospital mostly at home. I was pregnant with Blue Rock on our 5th and our daughter on our 10th. That's pretty neat. I should write a whole post about the last 10 years. They have been great! We exchanged gifts Friday night before going to the hospital. My husband gave me beautiful diamond stud earrings and a beautiful necklace with 1 Corinthians 13 on it. I gave him a Pebble watch and a Bento Box wrapped in foil. For modern gifts it's diamonds, for traditional gifts is aluminum and tin.  He went with modern and I went with traditional. Love him!! We woke up Saturday morning and got ready and picked Blue Rock up from my parents and went to lunch at Outback. Contractions were still going on but it mainly feels like lots of pressure with some pain. Saturday night my dad got back and he was able to watch Blue Rock so we could go to dinner. I wasn't very hungry so we ate at Boston Market. I'm so glad throughout our marriage we've eaten at so many nice restaurants. Originally we were planning on going to Del Friscos but since we weren't sure if the baby was going to come we needed to stay within about 10 minutes of the hospital and ate at Outback for lunch. We thought about going to Red Lobster that evening but I couldn't stomach it.

My parents were not able to keep Blue Rock Saturday night.  Thankfully, our preacher and his wife took Blue Rock Saturday night to their house. It was his first time to spend the night at a friend's house. They have 3 kids and he didn't want to go. I felt horrible making him go while he was crying and begging not to go. He knows them and their kids and has been to their house a number of times so I knew he'd be fine. They said he stopped crying shortly after he was in the car with them. The next day he told me he was scared but ended up having a lot of fun at their house. I was so glad! He wanted to go back over and play.

Meanwhile, Saturday night I was bleeding some. I decided to see if I bled a lot or my water broke before heading back to the hospital. I was still really tired from the night before and decided to just go to bed. Sunday morning I woke up with bad contractions and lots of back pain. I was hurting all over. We waited until 7am to go to the hospital since I didn't want to enter through the emergency entrance. I had a better experience Sunday morning. The head nurse was great and when I mentioned how bad my back hurt she said it sounded like the baby was sunny side up and if we could turn her the back pain should go away. She showed me how to do the runner's position and after about 15-20 minutes I felt her turn. When I sat up the pain went away. My contractions also slowed down. The nurse helping me Sunday morning was really nice. They wanted me to get a sonogram to check everything out. The baby looked perfect and since I was dilated to 3cm she gave me the option of going home and staying. If I was at a 4 then I would have had to stay. I told her I wanted to go home.

We made it to the end of church service and got Blue Rock. Then we went to lunch and I came home and rested all day. I took a shower and got in my pajamas. My back pain is mostly gone, the contractions are still going on but overall I'm feeling better.

Laying in a hospital bed will not help labor progress

This morning I had a doctor's appointment. My doctor said some women just have long labors. The baby seems like she'll come then will stop. She said since things moved fast with my son then I needed to be prepared to have her at home. She gave us cord clamps and a bulb syringe. She told my husband what to do if we got in that situation. She said she's right there and could come anytime. I asked about stripping the membranes. She said to come back Thursday if she's not born and she'll do it then since I'll be 38 weeks. That's a more natural way of helping move things along. The baby is measuring 7 lbs, 12 oz. By law she can't induce until 39 weeks unless one of my maternal fetal medicine doctors approve it. Which the older one in the group I go to most likely would. So if stripping the membranes didn't work she could break my water Monday and we'll have her then. However, I would rather have as little medical intervention as possible. So hopefully she'll either come before Monday or the stripping of the membranes will work. I also don't want to have a super big baby. Blue Rock came at 38 weeks naturally so maybe she will too. Thankfully her head is engaged my body just has to release her.



We are ready for anything!

When I was getting my sonogram this morning the nurse said, "your baby is really moving around!" I looked down and she was. Since she's constantly moving and I'm having constant contractions I've learned to block them out more.

Please pray for a safe delivery and a healthy baby and mama. When I was pregnant with Blue Rock and thinking about delivering in Germany I would remind myself about how Mary gave birth to Jesus in a barn with Joseph and most likely no doctors and lots of animals around. Not the most clean or ideal situation. I live in a clean house and the hospital is 10 minutes away. I didn't have any drugs with Blue Rock and I'm not planning on having any with this baby. If I'm induced I have heard that the pain increases greatly. I'm not opposed to pain medicine I just would rather not have any if I'm doing okay and the baby is. Now I'm going to go rest. I'm tired.

By the way, when we showed up at the hospital Friday night. There was a baby being wheeled into the nursery. Blue Rock asked, "is that my baby sister?" I told him, "nope, she's still in my belly." Haha!