Monday morning came and I was still pregnant. Aaron took Lincoln to school. I got everyone dressed. Then I took Adelia to piano. We somehow passed the morning, and then it was time to go pick up Linc from school. I loaded everyone in the car. On the way to Harmony, I started having small, painless contractions. I don't know if I just hit a bump in the road or what. I was supposed to pick up Lincoln and then drop off all the kids to Aaron at work, and then go to my doctor's appointment. But the fact that I was having contractions made me nervous. If I got all the way down to Payson, and the contractions kept coming, my doctor might send me over to the hospital. If that happened Aaron would still be in Springville, he'd have to find someone to watch the kids and get them there and then make the drive to Payson. Depending on how fast this labor went, anything could happen and Aaron might miss it.
Rather than take that chance, I thought it would be a good idea for Aaron to come to my doctor's appointment with me. We took the kids over to Aaron's mom's to play while we went. Of course, half way to Payson, my contractions stopped. :(
Dr. Anderson said I was dilated to a 3 1/2. He stretched me to a 4. He asked me how tired I was of being pregnant, and I told him I was very done. He said we could schedule an induction for Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. I told him that Tuesday sounded lovely. He stripped my membranes very thoroughly, and said there was a 50% chance that that would put me into labor tonight. Then we scheduled the induction for 6am the next morning. He also gave us a "prescription" that recommended that Aaron take me out for a nice dinner. :) And then we were on our way.
I called my mom to see if she could come down and spend the night with the kids, so we could just get up and go in the morning without having to wake anyone up. She said she would be on her way after she fed Kerry and Tanner dinner. Then we decided to take Dr. Anderson's advice and go to dinner. We stopped at Spanish Fork Kneaders and ordered my favorite sandwich, a Turkey Bacon Avocado on Foccacia. We sat down with our food, but I couldn't eat. I felt really weird.
We decided to go home. Aaron dropped me off at home first so I could take a hot bath and try to relax. He went to his mom's to pick up the kids. I was having spontaneous, painless contractions.
By 7:30, they were regular enough that I felt like I should time them. But they were still painless and pretty far apart. We got the kids in their jammies, and put them to bed. I hated to call Aaron's mom to come over, only to have the contractions stop again. But Aaron called her and asked her to please be on stand-by just in case. 15-20 minutes after that, we decided we'd probably better go to the hospital just in case.
Aaron's parents came over, since my mom was still about 30 minutes away. Aaron and I loaded up our hospital bag, and drove to Payson again, for the second time. My contractions slowed down on the drive, but they didn't stop. They were pretty consistent while we checked in at the front desk too.
When we got up to Labor and Delivery, the nurses joked with us about how we weren't supposed to be coming in until morning. :) But then the one nurse said, well, if you are dilated to a 4 and having contractions, I doubt Dr. Anderson will send you home. And she was right.
We stayed! We were going to have a baby without being induced...hooray!
Once I got changed into the hospital gown, and we'd answered all the questions from the nurse, I was hooked up to an IV to run a bag of saline into me. The bag of saline had to empty all the way before they could give me the epidural.
Yes. I opted to have the epidural again. I enjoyed Oliver's birth, in a different way than I enjoyed the other kids', and wanted to have a similar, calm experience this time around. I like being aware of what's going on in the room, I like talking to the Dr. and nurses and Aaron about the progress of the baby and how the birth is going. And I like being able to watch and be alert when the baby comes out. There are things I like about having natural births too, don't get me wrong. For me, both experiences have been great. Different, but good. I personally don't think one method is better than another in general. I think it depends on what kind of an experience you want to have. And for me, the experience I want is different depending on the pregnancy. I'd do natural again, and I'd do epidural again.
The nurse said that it was a busy night. She didn't come in and check my dilation as often as I thought she would, which didn't bother me. But one of the times she came in, she said my bag of water was bulging so big that she was having a hard time telling how dilated I was. She had another nurse come in to help. That nurse said I was at about a five. But since my water was going to pop any minute, they figured that I was going to dilate very quickly. For a minute, I thought I might be too late to have the epidural, and I started gearing up for going naturally. Hoping that if I had to go natural that it would go quickly.
It took awhile for the saline bag to drip, drip, drip it's way into my IV. While I was still feeling all the contractions, Aaron read to me to help me relax. It's an approach we haven't tried before, but I liked it. I liked focusing on the story instead of the contractions. And I think Aaron liked having something to read, instead of trying to make up random peaceful scenes on the spot to tell about. When the contractions got fairly painful, I had to have him stop reading and put pressure on my feet and calves instead.
Luckily that didn't last very long, and the anesthesiologist arrived. It seems like getting the epidural was quicker to put in this go around. And then there was no more pain, and it was glorious!
We were watching the clock, because we were in the 11pm hour, and we were wondering and taking bets on when Ruby's bday was going to be. Aaron was voting for the 2nd because 12/2/14 made a nice easy math problem. I was voting for the 1st because, well, I don't really know, except that I just thought she would be.
A short while later, the nurse came in to check me again. She said she was supposed to call Dr. Anderson when I'd dilated to a 6 or a 7. Then she checked me and was like, " Oh! You're done, you are fully dilated and ready to go any second. Let me go call the doctor." Dr. Anderson made it in, and everyone kind of rushed around to get all the tools prepared. Ruby waited patiently. When all was ready Dr. Anderson broke my water and told me to push.
Ruby came down, and the doctor said she was transverse, which means her head was looking up towards the ceiling, instead of down at the floor. Apparently, this is supposed to be fairly painful, so I was double glad of the epidural. :) Doc flipped her around the right way, and then told me to push a couple more times.
Then Ruby was here! At 11;45pm on December 1st. She let out a shriek that I've never heard from any of my other babies. She kept screaming while Aaron cut the umbilical cord, and then stopped once they wrapped her up in a towel. Then I got a good look at her.
She was beautiful. She had tons of dark hair, and was red-skinned like all my babies have been when they first come out. She weighed 6 pounds 13 ounces. My smallest baby by almost a pound. And she was 19 inches long. When I got to hold her, she nursed well right away for a good 30 minutes or more.
They let us have her for about an hour and a half before they came to take her to give her a bath. By that time the epidural had worn off, and we were able to switch rooms and settle in. Aaron tried to sleep, but I had too much after birth adrenaline going , so I ended up staying up all night, holding my sweet baby and just looking at her, and thinking about how everything was so right with the world at that moment.
The next day my mom brought up the other kids to meet Ruby. And Aaron's mom and brother Ryan came later in the day to see her too.
When I asked Ivan what he thought of his new baby sister, he said, "Well, she's a bit smaller than I expected." Hehe. :)
Ryan, pretending he doesn't like babies.
They checked us out of the hospital much earlier than we expected on Wednesday, which was awesome! We loaded Little Rue up in her car seat. They always look so tiny the first time they go in the car seat.
And now we're home and we have five kids! Let the fun begin. ;)
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