On November 2nd I went to the hospital around 5:30pm because I was having regular contractions. They were consistently 3-5 minutes apart lasting for about 60 seconds for over 2 hours. I went alone because I didn’t want to make my parents come down if it wasn’t the real deal. (I had been having regular contractions on and off the past week) When I got there they checked me for dilation and I was only 2cm and he was still very high. They wanted to check me again at 8pm and see if I made any progress. My contractions continued but they weren’t very painful. When they checked I still hadn’t made much progress, but they decided to keep me a little bit longer and do another check. My doctor came back around 10pm and I still didn’t show much change so he told me I could go home to try and get rest. I decided to go home about 10:30pm and try to sleep.
I didn’t get much sleep because my contractions started getting really painful around 12:30am on November 3rd. I called my parents to come down and watch the boys so we could go back to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 3:00am. When they checked me I was only 3cm and I felt really defeated because the contractions were so strong and close together. They went ahead and said they would keep me and hooked me up to the IV and a hep lock since this was a VBAC, even though it was my second one. I asked for an exercise ball so I could get up off my back because I was having horrible back labor. They moved me to a bigger room so that I had room to get on the exercise ball. Once I got settled on the exercise ball I felt the urge to push around 5:00am and I thought no way could that be possible. The nurse had me get back on the bed so I could be checked. I was 9cm already, so much change in so little time. I asked if I could get some nubain in my IV because I was in so much pain, but the nurse said it was too late.
They ended up putting a peanut ball in between my legs as I was laying in bed to try and help Prestyn move down because he was still pretty high up. This worked and he started moving down. Then I was a 10cm and they could feel his head. They called the doctor in and he was really surprised I was ready to push. I started pushing around 5:45am, and I didn’t think I could do it because it was sooo painful. The doctor, nurses, my mom, and Kenny were so supportive. They were telling me to give it all I had and I thought for sure I had hours of pushing left. I had no idea that he was about to make his appearance. The next thing I knew he was here and placed on my chest. We did delayed cord clamping for a bit, but he was a little too blue so they wanted to take him over to the warming bed and give him a little oxygen. Kenny did get to cut the umbilical cord unlike with the other two boys.
Prestyn arrived at 6:07am and weighed 10lbs. 2oz. and was 21 1/2 inches long.
I am so grateful that my doctor supported my VBAC even though I had gestational diabetes this time and he was measuring big. Dustyn was a scheduled c-section he was 10lbs. 4oz. and Carsyn was a induced VBAC he was 9lbs. 6oz. I definitely wish I would have known better and at least tried with Dustyn. the recovery is so much easier.
We had one blissful day as a family of 5. The next morning the pediatrician was making her rounds to discharge us and noticed he was breathing too fast… Come back soon for a post about Prestyn’s NICU stay.
