Who ever would’ve thought I’d be retelling the birth of my third child? A third daughter, no less…
Jonathon took the morning of January 20 off work in order to drive me around. I thought he would’ve just stayed home with the girls while I went to my appointments. But, he decided that I was in no physical condition to drive.
I first saw my OB. She informed me that I was two centimeters dilated so far. The contractions I’d been having since about 11:30 pm the night before were clearly doing something. For formality’s sake, I had to make an appointment for the following week, but I think we were both sure I wouldn’t be making that one.
After the OB, I had an appointment to get my WinRho injection because it was my due date and baby hadn’t yet arrived. If I would give birth in the next few days following this shot, I wouldn’t require any extra treatment for this in hospital, post partum. If the baby took longer to arrive, then I’d need another dose of this treatment. Following this appointment, we went home.
My contractions were still sporadic and slightly uncomfortable, but no real pattern to them yet. At about 2 pm, my mom called me from work, asking if anything was happening. I told her about my random contractions and she planned to leave work shortly. The plan was for her to come and stay with Jamayia & Jhyelle while I was in the hospital and stay a few days to help me out once I got home. She also knew that because I had tested positive for Group B Strep, I would need to head to the hospital fairly early in my labour to receive treatment. I told her not to rush and that Jonathon had driven to work that day and was just a phone call away.
Since I had an idea of when my mom was coming, I sprung into action. Nice time for the nesting instinct to kick in. I stripped the sheets off my bed and Jamayia’s bed, and remade both of them. I washed those sheets too. Then I grabbed and changed all the towels and washed those after the sheets. I did some other minor cleaning too. Even though my Mom was coming to help me, I didn’t want to just dump everything on her. Plus, I realized that moving around seemed to stop the contractions, or at least make them less painful.
At 9 pm, just after tucking the girls into bed, I was standing on the stairs, talking to Mom & Jonathon when I felt a small gush of water. I looked down and was very, very glad to see that there was no leakage on the carpet. I went to my bathroom and changed my clothes. I finished gathering the last minute items in my hospital bag, and also packed some snacks for Jonathon. Turns out that he hadn’t eaten all day long. He’d skipped breakfast, grabbed some onion rings quickly in the afternoon and hadn’t really had the chance for anything else all day. On the way to the hospital, I kept asking if he didn’t want to stop in at a drive thru somewhere, but he kept refusing. Even when we arrived at the hospital, Tim Horton’s was still open, but he wanted to see me settled in first.
I got to the hospital at 9:45 pm. Contractions were more regular, about 15 minutes apart. It was nice to go through the brief registration procedure without constant pain. It was also great arriving there late at night. It was nice and quiet and not a lot of people around. My main goals were to get a private hospital room and also an epidural.
I’d had an epidural for Jamayia’s birth and missed it with Jhyelle. I figured I had arrived early enough to not miss it again this time…
(Part 2 to come soon)