Tess's birth

So here's the quick rundown on why our labor and delivery on Sunday/Monday lasted over 24 hours ...

On Sunday morning I felt contractions coming every 8 minutes apart so my midwife asked me to go to the hospital for evaluation. Andrew, my mom and I went and left Finn with Andrew's mom. I had the feeling that this was finally it! After an hour or so on the monitors they decided to admit me - this was around 1 pm, I think. We let Darcie (the doula) know and she arrived around 3 pm. I was still feeling contractions but not progressing much, so we just walked around the maternity ward and waited for something to happen i.e. dilation or closer contractions.

Around NINE pm, I was still in the same approximate condition, maybe I had dilated to 3 cm by then but my contractions still weren't getting stronger, so the midwife gave us the options of a) going home and waiting til labor started there in earnest, b) taking an ambien and sleeping at the hospital til the morning, when maybe contractions would be stronger, or c) breaking my water. We decided to go with option c since at that point we wanted a baby already (!) BUT the LD ward was busy with a couple of major emergencies, and there were no extra nurses to help break my water. Sigh. We then went to option b, which turned out to be the better one anyway.

My mom and Darcie went home and Andrew and I slept in the room for a few hours. Sleeping is never a worry for him, he falls asleep the moment his head hits the pillow, but for me it was a challenge - I'm still glad we did it that way. Around 1 am the nurses checked me and I was dilated to 6 cm and the contractions were starting to HURT. I had a nubain drip for pain but decided against an epidural this time, so it was much different than my labor with Finn. Darcie came in around 2 am, which was a godsend because I was starting to feel a lot of pain (despite my excitement that within a matter of hours Tess would be born). Anyway, the hours went by and all of a sudden when I was fully dilated my water broke and it was time to push. That lasted maybe a half hour although it felt like forever, and then out she came! Andrew caught her. That was awesome.

I don't think I'm forgetting anything. It was quite the experience though. And the next day I was on my feet and the next day we came home. More photos to come in the next post.