the pentz family

For those who have been asking for all the labor and delivery details here goes…

I was definitely not expecting baby to arrive last Saturday. I had finally accepted the fact she hadn’t arrived by Halloween as thought and that I was going to be induced on Monday, November 10th. So, I was planning on sending Michael on last minute errands on Saturday and then enjoying a relaxing date night at home.

I woke up at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday with pain in my back and hips. By 4:30 I knew it was definitely not false labor anymore… which I’d been having on and off for the past two weeks! From 4:30 to 7:00 I walked around the house, took a shower, sat on the exercise ball and tried the silly breathing techniques. I called the doctor at 7:00 with contractions 5 minutes apart lasting 45 seconds. We arrived at the hospital by 8:00. Thankfully Michael drove the speed limit and stayed clear of any bumps on the way to the hospital (for those of you who have been a passenger in the car with him you understand this!).

At the initial triage check-in, I was at 6 cm dilated, station 0 with contractions about 4 minutes apart lasting 50 seconds. By 10 a.m. I was 8 cm dilated, still waiting for my epidural. Definitely was feeling the contractions at this point since I had no medication. However, I didn’t want any other drugs because I wanted to be alert when the baby was born.

When the anesthesiologist came in to administer the epidural, I knew it was a 50/50 chance if the epidural would even work. I have fused discs in my lower spine and the anesthesiologist said he’d give it a try. After scraping bone twice (yes twice!), he finally got the epidural in and it worked (thank goodness!). Within 20 minutes I was very happy, feeling nothing from the waist down and now 9 cm dilated. The doctor then broke my waters. There was merconium in the waters, so NICU was on standby just in case Carrington aspirated the merconium. By 1:00 I was a full 10 cm dilated.

The doctor had me wait until 1:30 to begin pushing to allow the epidural to wear off some so I could push stronger. After 2 hours of pushing, Carrington was born! She was completely tangled in the umbilical cord, so that’s the reason it took 2 hours of pushing. Thankfully, she did not swallow the merconium. I did have a small episiotomy… at least I didn’t have to have a c-section and then have to deal with that during recovery.

Looking back, the worst part of labor was experiencing the contractions without pain relief as long I did and getting the epidural (feeling the scraping of the bone was not fun… yet I will still get an epidural if I have another baby!). The labor and delivery nurses at Riverside are amazing and Carrington’s birthday was beautiful and wonderful in every way.

Y