(Michael) We had a c-section scheduled for the following Tuesday, but Amanda started having contractions on Saturday night. At first we felt pretty good, I was tracking the timing and it didn't take very long before the contractions were happening every 5 minutes. But then it became strange, and the intervals began to vary widely between 4-11 minutes. So around 4am Sunday morning we decided that we might as well pack up the car and head to the hospital. Sadly we were told that things were not progressing and that we should try to walk around the hospital grounds and come back to see if anything had changed. Poor Amanda. After a very uncomfortable walk, we went back to triage and they told us that nothing had changed. In my opinion, if you ask someone his/her pain on a scale of 1 to 10 and they say 10, that's the sign that you need to do something (administer drugs, escalate to more intensive care, get a doctor, etc.). Sadly, the nurses did not do this. Fortunately, after a few hours, Amanda's OB was there and immediately sent us to the labor and delivery room.
I was very impressed with the epidural lady. She was so fast, and it seemed like she was timing herself to set a new record. It took about 5 minutes and afterwards the floor was covered in all kinds of medicine caps and plastic wrappers (because apparently there was no time to throw any of that away). But after waiting so long, it was so nice to have someone move quickly.
After the pain died down, the OB came in and said we could either do a c-section right then, or try to be induced...and then get a c-section. Since we wanted to check off as many different procedures as we could in a period of 24 hours, we opted for option number 2. The Pitocin was very...anticlimactic (so many hours, so little of anything). That meant that we were back to the original plan with a c-section. At least we felt like we did all we could before going that route.
I got to put on the scrubs and sat behind the giant curtain (you can tell that they definitely didn't want you to see). I asked about taking pictures and they told me I could but that it was going to happen fast and that I was going to need to be ready very quickly. Sure enough after a very quick procedure with some very jovial doctors ("hey what are you guys doing next weekend...."), they gave me the cue and I had a few seconds to snap a couple pictures.
And then we got to meet our son.
It was great, but we were so exhausted. Amanda was amazing and is recovering well. We are now excited to be able to post all of his new adventures.
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