Megan's Delivery

After epidural

Trav watching the contractions

Ma and I in the delivery room

Lyd and I in the delivery room



I quickly learned that our little Megan likes to do things on her own time. After all, we had a plan--begin induction process Tuesday night (3/8) and begin pitocin drip on Wednesday morning.  Megan would arrive at some point on Wednesday; however, our little pumpkin had other things in mind. Our labor/delivery journey began like this:
--Monday night I had irregular contractions starting at 9pm. I didn't know at that point that they were contractions. I've heard that they start at the top of your stomach and it gets really hard. Those were not how my contractions were at all. They felt more like cramping down in my pelvis. I didn't realize then that this was the start of my labor.
--Tuesday I called several people to see if what I was really going through was labor. I used a contraction counter to see if they were coming at regular intervals, and they were. They were about 3-5 minutes apart.
--After calling our midwife, we headed to Northside Hospital and got there around 1pm.
--Once I was in the delivery room, the contractions started coming more frequently; however, I was not dilating. I was stuck at 2cm.
--My water broke partially on its own. Barbora, our midwife, broke the second section of water manually. She could tell at this point that Megan had passed meconium in utero. They inserted a catheter to flush  the amniotic fluid. She also told us that there would be a NICU team during delivery, so that they could quickly suction out any meconium that made it into her system.
--Next, they decided to give me pitocin in hopes that it would speed up the dilation process. The pitocin caused the contractions to come even more frequently which made it hard for me to rest in between. This was the hardest part. The contractions were painful, but I was able to get through them by taking deep breaths and going to my happy spot (Jekyll Island). Once the pitocin hit, I just couldn't take how frequently they were coming, so four hours later (around 5pm) I decided to get the epidural.
--I don't remember exactly how bad it hurt...but it was bad.  I can't equate the pain to anything else; however, after that, labor was a breeze.
--7pm hit and Barbora checked my dilation-- I was only at 3cm. My contractions were strong enough but for whatever reason, Megan wasn't making her way down. Barbora said we could continue laboring if I wanted, but because of the meconium issue and because of her (and Dr. Allen's) professional opinion, I decided to have the c-section. They began prepping me for surgery at 7:20, and they wheeled me down the hall at 7:30.