Carson's Birth Story

On Friday evening, we had dinner with our dear friends the Clines and the Wasdells. Jen made chili, and we all joked that it (and the hot peppers she served with it) could possibly jump start my labor. HA! I was having some back pain and a few contractions, but nothing consistent. After a dessert of s'mores, we headed home to put our sweet baby girl to bed as it was WAY past her bedtime.

In the car on the way home, around 9:30, I had two fairly uncomfortable contracts that were about 10 minutes apart. Then I had one 8 minutes apart. By the time we got into the house, they were 3 minutes apart. They were noticeably uncomfortable, but not so painful that I felt the need to immediately speed to the hospital or anything! We decided to give it half an hour and see if they kept coming. They most certainly did. It was at that point that we called Andy's mom to keep her on standby. Another half an hour went by with contractions of the same frequency, and we called Andy's mom to come over. Shortly after she got there, we put our bags in the car and set out for the hospital.

On the way to the hospital, the contractions subsided a bit. I started to get nervous that it was just going to turn out to be a false alarm. However, when I did have contractions (about every 5-6 minutes in the car) they were still as strong as they had been at home.

Once we arrived, they checked us in and gave us a room. We found out within about 20 minutes of being in the room that they were going to admit me...baby time! I was 4-5 cm dilated at that point and 75% effaced. They started my IV and began giving me fluids so that I could have an epidural. The anesthesiologist arrived around 2am and administered the epidural, which was not painful at all this time. I was numb enough that I could not feel the contractions anymore, but I could still feel and move my legs and lower body. At this point I was about 5-6 cm dilated. I was contracting regularly on my own and making progress, so they did not need to give me any pitocin to speed up or strengthen the contractions. Andy and I tried to relax/sleep for a while, which was not all that successful. We tried though.

Around 3am, I was 7-8 cm, and at 4am the midwife arrived and broke my water. This pushed me to 8cm, and the nurse and midwife both said that they now expected things to move rather quickly. I immediately felt more pressure with each contraction. About an hour and a half later at 5:35am, after 10 minutes of pushing, baby Carson arrived!