Here’s the story… It’s long, so feel free to skip to the pictures at any point.
My water broke at around 5am that morning. I didn’t really know what was happening only that I was leaking, and it was completely involuntary. I called Labor and Delivery at the hospital and they said to come on down. My mom and dad prepped the car and we drove down to the hospital. As it was 3 ½ weeks early, I had not yet packed a bag for the hospital. I was giving direction to my Mom and sisters as to what to pack.
When I arrived at the hospital I, of course took a ride in the wheelchair up to the second floor. They put me in a room and did a test to see what was going on. Turns out that my water had indeed ruptured and that baby was on his way! They called my doctor who was equally surprised to hear the news because I was at her office the afternoon before! She told me “fluid looks good, baby has not dropped yet, see you in a week.” At this point, I was not dilated at all and the baby had not started to move down yet. I was not at all ready for this to happen!
They started an IV for fluid and also because they were planning to give me pitocin to get things going. After a few hours I started feeling some contractions. At this point I was dilated to a 3, however I was fully effaced. (I didn’t really know what that meant because I had not yet had the child birth classes. Mom and I were signed up to take them the following Sunday. I really had no idea what was going on). I went ahead and got the epidural, albeit a little early, but I had heard stories about getting it too late. It worked like a charm! I was totally numb from the waist down and couldn’t feel the contractions. By now my Mom and Dad, Cindy, Lisa and Sonali were there with me. After a few more hours I started to feel a little pain on one side, and then it started to get a little stronger and started on the other side too. Then it was coming and going along with the contractions on the monitor. The nurses asked “on a scale of 1-10, where is the pain?” It wasn’t too bad yet, but I kept stressing that it was getting worse. A little advice to anyone in this situation… the pain is ALWAYS A 10!!! The nurse had not called the anesthesiologist yet, and it got really bad. They checked me again and I was now dilated to a 7 ½!!! The nurse said “we will have you roll onto your left, and then onto your right, then we should be ready to go!” Now that the epidural had mostly worn off I was so scared that I would have to go through the birth and feel everything. I was probably more scared about that than anything. I kept asking where he was and they kept telling me that he was on his way. It was pretty awful and painful until the anesthesiologist finally got there. For whatever reason he said that he could only give me one dose of medication. I could have it now or I could have it later. I had no idea if this would continue for 5 hours or 1 hour, but I was in pain and I wanted it now. Thankfully right after I was numb again the doctor said it was time to push. I had to push for about an hour before he arrived. It was hard work, but worth it. Baby Luke was born at 10:00 pm; around 17 hours after my water broke.
He didn’t cry much and looked perfect, except for the cone head… a pretty good cone head. It was such a great feeling to finally get to hold him! We had several visitors over the next few days and so many people expressing their love for little Luke.
Laboring... and looking awesome.
He's finally here!
It looked pretty awful at the time, but it went back to
normal in a day or so.
(Apparently it is nothing compared to my
nephew Cooper's cone head.)
Proud Daddy
Grandma and Grandpa Strebel!
Aunt Cindy
Aunt Lisa
Uncle Andy and Cousin Cooper
Cooper made himself comfortable.
Aunt Naomi
Aunt Sonali
Uncle Hans
First bath.
Great Auntie Jo, and Grandma Carolyn
Cousin Donald
Going Home!
Does this car seat make me look small?
Grandpa Arlo John Hafen
March 2, 1923-
July 8, 2011
mmmmm...