So Sophie was born on Sunday, March 22, 2009. I had been to the doctor on the Friday before and was 70% effaced with no dilation. So it seemed she may or may not come soon. I woke up Saturday morning and went to the bathroom. I had been shedding my mucus plug for quite a while (TMI...i know) and that morning there was more mucus with some blood in it along with a little cramping. It was then that I knew the baby would be coming in the next couple days.
Sam's mom was staying with us so that day we ran around and did some errands. We looked at furniture and we went to the casino. Sometime during the day I started to have some minor contractions. They would come and go all day and were bearable. After we got home we had dinner and I decided to lie down for a while since the contractions were getting a little worse. Before this I did not let anyone know what was happening but when I laid down I let Sam know. The contractions started to come more often and it seemed that the baby was going to come that night.
I laid in bed on my side from 6:00 to about 1:30 in the morning when we decided that it was time to go to the hospital. My contractions were somewhere between 3 and 5 minutes apart and they were very painful on my back. I couldn't even tell about the contractions in my belly since the most pain was in my back.
We made it to the hospital and got checked in. I was dilated to 6 so I didn't have to go back home, they kept me there. I then decided that the epidural was the thing to do since my back hurt so much. They pumped me with fluids quickly because the anesethiologist was near so they wanted to get me done quickly. The fluids made me shiver like crazy but by the time we did the epidural it had gotten better. The epidural was great...didn't feel a thing in my waste and my legs were only kind of tingly and not totally numb.
The contractions started to slow down after that so they gave me a drug to help those out again. Finally we were ready to push but the doctor wasn't there yet. The nurse started me pushing but since things were going so well we stopped so that the doctor would make it there on time. We waited longer and she finally showed up so we did some more pushing and at 7:22 am Sophie was born.
I should also mention that at 2:00 am after we knew we were staying at the hospital we called my sister Brenda to let her know what was happening. She was on call but found someone to cover for her and she drove to the cities from Fargo and made it just in time for the pushing to start. So Sam and Brenda were with me in the delivery room and Sam's mom was out in the waiting room. All and all everything went very smoothly.
