Bentley's Labor and Delivery

::This blog has not been edited, but I wanted to pot it anyway, it's also a detailed labor and delivery story for my record, so if you're not into that kinda thing just skip it:: :)

Since I was 37 weeks I had been having constant contractions. All the time. At my 36 week appt I was 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced and at my 37 week I was 3 cm and 80% effaced. I figured this meant Baby Boy would come much sooner rather than later. Since all those contractions had moved me that far, I figured if they kept going like that he would be here in no time. Sure enough, the contractions kept on coming but they weren't turning into anything strong enough to go to the hospital. At my 38 week appt I was certain that I would have progressed at least some what, but I didn't. Talk about emotional. To have contractions like crazy and absolutely no progression. Ya, I cried. At  this point I was just done. It's one thing to have contractions and progression and a complete different thing to have no progression. My dr had stripped my membranes at my 37 week appt and I and gone into the 38 week appt thinking of asking him again, but I couldn't really talk after he said "yup, same as last week" without bursting into tears (I waited till the car to do that). With it being Kyle's last week at home we were really hoping Baby Boy would make his appearance that week, but obviously that wasn't the plan. This past week he had choir camp and we were for sure he would come then, but contractions kept coming and no labor.

Sunday night I thought I was leaking my amniotic fluid, so we went into the hospital at around 11 on Monday morning to get checked out. I couldn't decide if it was amniotic fluid or not so I just wanted a peace of mind. We got there, they hooked me up, and did the fluid test. The nurse checked me and said that it wasn't my sac because she could feel it bulging, but it would have been my cervix opening and more liquidy discharge from that, but definitely not my water. She did say that wanted to keep me for observation though because I was having contractions that were 2-3 minutes apart (no news to me). They had Kyle and I walk around the hospital for an hour to see if I would make any progression. It may seem silly, but I think we had a lot of fun on our hour long walk. One of the reasons I fell in love with Kyle is because of his ability to keep me smiling and relaxed during situations where otherwise I would be an emotional wreck, and this was one of those times. We walked around laughing, trying to "sway the baby down into my hips" and just kept praying that I had progressed. Our hour passed and we waddled back up to Labor and Delivery. I laid down and the nurse said "well, you're still contracting every 2-3 minutes and there are some pretty hard ones, do you have a really high pain tolerance or something?" Umm... "To be honest, I've had them for 2 weeks so I'm kind of numb to them now" She checked me told me that I hadn't progressed much and she would like me to walk another hour because she really didn't want to send me back to Holbrook with these contractions and she would go call talk to the head nurse and come back in.

After she came back I started crying and told her I really didn't want to walk around again because if I hadn't progressed in the past week I doubt an hour walking would help. I told her I'd been having these contractions for 2 weeks and I was just done. You could tell she felt bad because she obviously could see I either wanted to get admitted and have a baby, or just go home; none of this waiting around stuff. She said she would call my doctor and come back in. After she left I cried a little more and Kyle asked me if I really just wanted to go home or if I would walk some more. I told him I would walk more if they really wanted me too "that's the Alli I know" was his response :)  Yes, good lil' Alli, does what the doctor orders- whatever just get the baby out! is really how I felt :) She came back and I told her I'll walk. She said she had gotten off the phone with the doctor and he said for me to walk again and if I didn't progress he would induce me the following day or later that week. We asked her if he was willing to do it tomorrow why not today and she said it was because he wasn't on call that night and would rather do it the next night when he was at the hospital. Ugh. Okay. So there we went walking again. We started getting friendly with the staff that had seen us walking around all day and made friends with an older gentleman behind a desk- he would give us an update every time we went by of how long that lap took and how many laps we had left :)

Fast forward an hour and back we went to Labor and Delivery. About this time it's about 3:30 pm. I laid down, the head nurse came in and said "Alright, I think you've progressed a little, I'll call you a 4 now. And I'll sweep your membranes.... Okay. Let's go get you a room" :) I honestly wouldn't say I was really in actual active labor, but when it came right down to it they knew with all the contractions it wouldn't take much for me to have the baby. I live an hour away and I am GBS+, so they really didn't feel comfortable sending me home. They admitted me at 4:30pm.

We got into the room, hooked up to the IV, and all the monitors and my contractions were really starting to pick up in intensity. The nurse came in around 5:30 and let me know that if I wanted an epidural in the next 3 hours or so I was going to need to get it now because the only anesthesiologist that was there had a surgery and was going to be tied up. I'm an epidural lover, so they hooked me up before labor really started to get intense. Around 6:30 the nurse came in the check me and I had effaced a little and dilated a little, but the contractions weren't hard enough quite yet. She said she wanted to start pitocin so she called me doctor to see what he thought. Since I'm GBS+ they needed to get all my antibiotics in before baby came, so he wasn't comfortable helping labor along until I got 3 doses, which takes about 6 hours. At the point I need one more dose and they needed to wait another 2 hours to start it. The nurse started pitocin at about 12 and said she was going to start it at 3 mL and see how that worked and she was probably going to need to up it every 30 minutes or so. At this point I was 5 cm and about 95% effaced but not fully effaced yet. The contractions were doing something, but not as much as the nurse would have liked. As soon as she started the pitocin contractions just started moving right along and she didn't need to bump it up at all. My epidural was only working on my legs and the left side of my hips, but I could feel a lot in my right hip- that wasn't comfortable at all. At all, at all. 2 hours later I was at a 9, fully effaced and my water still hadn't broken (side note: The whole time I thought it was funny that we came in thinking my water was broke, not because of contractions. They kept me because of my contractions and my water wouldn't break. Kinda funny). The nurse called my doctor to see if he wanted to come in or if he would like us to call the on call doctor. He let her know he would be there shortly. It's is about 2 o'clock by now and we were just waiting on the doctor. I kept telling the nurse that I was feeling a lot of pressure- like a lot. She kept telling me that she didn't want to check me and risk infection and stuff so she was just going to wait for the doctor to get there.

Dr. Izenberg came in at about 2:50, let me know I was completely dilated and effaced and he was going to break my water. He let me know that Baby was still at -1 station so the contractions would probably need to move him down the birth canal a little bit and walked out. I told the nurse I was still feeling a lot of pressure and so she said we would do some practice pushes. Remember that I have an epidural, and moving can be pretty difficult when your legs are numb.... she didn't help sit me up or anything so here I am laying on my side in the bed and she's telling me to push. I tried and told her I don't have leverage on anything and I can't push laying on my side. I asked her if I could sit up more and go on my back (umm.. DUH I feel like). She agrees, helps me sit up, has Kyle grab a leg, and tells me to wait for a contraction then push. She let me know there was a contraction- I started pushing and she yelled at me to "stop stop stop!" Baby Boy was here :) She yelled for the doctor, the nurses ran in, doctor told me "I'm going to break the bed down, and DON'T push or that baby is going to fall out". I told him I was good, I felt much better now and I didn't really feel pressure anymore :) They got everything ready and told me to slowly push him the rest of the way out. After pushing for 2.5 hours with Macy I was always so jealous of the girls that had like 1 push and the baby was out... I wasn't wrong on being jealous, it's totally the way to go :)

Bentley getting checked out.

Meeting Mommy.

Meeting Daddy

Grandma Carbonneau and Bentley

The next day Granda Gardner, Grandma Carbonneau, Macy and London came to meet Bentley. The girls didn't really want anything to do with him at first. Macy finally decided that it would be okay to read him a story, and London finally decided that she wanted to hold him.

Our hospital is an hour away from our house and family that we live close to, and the rest of our family lives quite a ways from us which means we don't get many visitors at the hospital. Some people may enjoy not having visitors at the hospital, but I always appreciate when we have people that want to see the baby. We were super lucky and had wi-fi in the hospital and got some visitors via google chat.

Here is Bentley meeting some of his Carbonneau cousins.

Other than all that excitement, we really just enjoyed our new baby at the hospital. It was nice not having anywhere to go, no clothes to wash, dishes to clean, meals to cook... I just got to love on my little guy. He didn't spend much time in his basinet :)

I forgot how much I love having a newborn. They are so precious and you can just feel their spirit and how much Heavenly Father loves them, and he must love me for entrusting me with this little guy. I feel like with each new baby I've gotten a stronger testimony of Heavenly Fathers love for us. I can't imagine a stronger love than that for your children and I'm so blessed to have the ones I have.