Since I'm STILL working on Logan's baby book (ever so slowly), I might as well go ahead and type up his birth story so it'll be all ready to go when I get to that page in his book! Don't read this if you aren't good with birth stories ;)
It was around 3:30 pm on December 17th that I had my 39 week appointment. I had already lost some of the mucous plug and was having a few cramps that day so I was excited about that, even though that really doesn't mean a whole lot in terms of when labor will start. At my appointment Dr. Stoddard checked me and said I was only about 1-2 cm dilated, and told me that she didn't really foresee it happening anytime very soon. She offered to do a membrane sweep though, so I said what the heck, why not. I didn't even really know what a membrane sweep meant, but if she was endorsing it then I was all for it!
I headed home from the appointment around 4:30 pm and noted that I still had some cramps, but really nothing painful. As the afternoon wore on and Daniel called to say that he was on his way home, my cramps had gotten a little more painful. I was getting really excited at this point, but still didn't call anyone because I felt like it could still be false labor. By the time Daniel got home from work and we relaxed for a little bit, the cramps had started to form more into actual time-able contractions. Still very far apart, but at least it was more action than we'd had up until then!
We decided to go out to dinner, so I picked Moe's in hopes that a little spicy salsa would give it an extra push. I was definitely having contractions by the time we sat down to eat, but again still pretty far apart. After dinner we walked around the mall a couple of times. That's where things really started to heat up! As I waddled around, I would have to stop and pause every few minutes when a big one hit.
Just in case this was the real thing, we headed back to the apartment around 9 pm to get ready. I took a shower, straightened my hair and did my make up (as if any of that would last me! hah! such little did I know). We packed up the rest of our bags and hit the walking trail around the lake in the middle of our complex to get a few extra laps in and hopefully hurry up those contractions. By 10:30 pm, I was timing my contractions about 4-5 minutes apart and decided we could call the doctor. She pointed us to the hospital, so we hopped in the car and went to L&D around 11 pm.
L&D is definitely an experience! They put me in triage until they could definitely determine that I was in labor. I remember changing into that awful gown (ugh) and laying down in a curtained stall while a nurse monitored my contractions. They were still around 4-5 minutes apart on average, so the nurse was hesitant to admit us without knowing that things would continue to progress. While the nurse left us for a little bit to go find the on-call doctor, I felt a little gush of something. It's kind of embarrassing asking your husband to look "down there" to see what's going on, so I asked him to fetch the nurse! haha! If I only knew what he was going to see later on I don't know if I would have been so modest. When the nurse came back, I told her something had happened but I didn't know what it was! She checked and seemed a little concerned - which of course worried me (I'm such a worrier). She told me that I had lost a little blood, so they were going to go ahead and admit me to a room.
After we got all settled in to our room and everything checked out fine (turns out that some lose a little blood beforehand rather than after birth), I asked the doctor when he thought things might happen (enter impatient me). He checked my stats and came back with a time: noon. What?! It was only 2 am! Argh! At that point, he asked me if I was interested in an epidural. It had definitely crossed my mind that I might want one, but asked if I could wait it out a little bit longer. He said that was fine, but that the anesthesiologist was about an hour away. Okay well then, let's do it! So they called in the anesthesiologist and I got set up with an epidural (which was, by the way, way worse than actually giving birth in my opinion. Large needles and possible paralysis scares me to death). Soon I was pretty numb from the chest down.
Unfortunately the epidural slowed down labor, so we introduced pitocin into my system. All I can say is thank goodness I couldn't feel any the contractions at that point because the monitor was going crazy! The pitocin worked though, and pretty soon I checked out at 10 cm (baby pushing time!). Hurray! After 30 minutes of pushing and a little bit of suction (his shoulders were turned, getting stuck on my pelvis), baby Logan Roberto made his way into the world! And he cruised in right on time, 11:58 am on December 18. 7 lbs and 1 oz of cuteness (and a cone head to boot!). I asked the doctor how in the world he knew it would be noon when Logan arrived, and he said he'd been delivering babies for quite some time ;) To top it off, our doctor's son is named Logan also!
Congrats if you made it through this whole story :) I just now completed this little saga just in time for my little Logan's 3rd birthday! Woohoo! If I would have waited any longer I think I might have started mixing up Logan & Blake's birth stories since they were so similar! ;)
