Despite willing it to be true, I didn’t have a baby by morning. Both E & G were born on a Sunday at 2am, but this baby decided to be different. I also didn’t get a ton of sleep either. I wasn’t feeling painful contractions, but lying down was uncomfortable. Unless I was sitting up or walking around, I’d get a little crampy, just enough that I couldn’t fall asleep. I think I managed to sleep from 11:30 - 1 am and again from 3:45 - 4:30 am when contractions slowed down a bit. Because they slowed down, I got a second dose of medication at that time.
I was feeling a bit frustrated and impatient (as was everyone who knew I was at the hospital waiting for updates!) but I managed to eat a granola bar and some apple juice and started to get my mind around the fact I might be here for a while.
Things briefly got exciting around 7am when my water broke randomly, but it was mostly frustrating because I thought that would kick start things a bit more, but all I got were a minorly uncomfortable contractions and some nausea. Since I was still on my wireless monitor and not yet hooked up to an IV, I decided to take a long hot shower. I wasn’t sure when I’d be allowed to shower again, so I was going to take full advantage.
As you might remember, I’ve got a history of hemorrhaging post birth (which brings along with all sorts of restrictions, like no showers after). The good news was the doctor we got when shifts changed that morning was one who took that risk seriously. They had a plan in place to avoid hemorrhaging, and another plan in case the first one failed to deal with it. Every nurse that walked into the room was updated on the plan, the medication was all laid out and ready, and two units of blood had already been typed and crossed for me in case I needed them. I even had an IV port in each arm, just in case. Although I was still terrified of having a repeat of G’s birth, it was comforting knowing things might be better this time.
After my shower I pretty much paced the room, bored and impatient. Things were slowly picking up, but not enough to ensure a baby anytime soon. Around noon I decided to ask for the laughing gas (or gas & air if you’re British). I’ve always been curious how it could help in labor, and figured it would be a good distraction. Contractions weren’t that bad yet, but I figured I might need some practice with the gas first.
Although it’s called laughing gas, it’s mixed with enough oxygen that it doesn’t actually make you laugh. In my experience it makes you super dizzy, like you just got off the teacup ride at Disney. It also made me a bit more nauseous (or maybe it was labor in general, but I did get some medication to help with that) and my ears pound too. It takes a while to kick in, and wears off very quickly so there’s a bit of a learning curve to figure out how you want to use it. I found it worked best when my contractions were coming back to back and I could keep a baseline level of dizziness, and then it would make the contractions shorter and less intense, but not take them away. It also helped if I kept my eyes closed, since that took away the feeling that the room was spinning everywhere.
So although it didn’t make me laugh, there was a moment at the beginning that did - the gas wasn’t quite hooked up right at the beginning, so when I went to take a breath there was a LOUD sound like someone was slowly killing Earnie’s rubber ducky.
I used the gas for about two hours before conferring with my doula. The gas wasn’t horrible but it took a lot of work and concentration to work appropriately. I figured I could do it for another hour or so, but if we were too far from the end, I might lose energy and stamina. Also my doula pointed out that it’s hard to use the gas while pushing.
So I got checked and the estimate was that we were still 4 hours from pushing. Too long to be able to keep up with the gas, so I asked for an epidural and got it about an hour later, after another apple juice break. I do love epidurals so much. I can still move around and have a lot of control, but the pain is completely gone and I get to snuggle under heated blankets and watch movies.
A little after 5:45 I video chatted with the kids, who were super interested in everything that was happening and wanted to talk with my nurse. I was still pretty happy at that point, but things must have moved along pretty quickly after I hung up with them, because baby F was born at 6:44 pm.
