Danielle's taking a nap, so I'm taking this opportunity to jot some thoughts about the experience so far.
2am early Saturday morning, Danielle is awoken by contractions she can't ignore and decides to get up. Timing the contractions at http://contractionmaster.com , she sees that, while they're killing her back, they're still quite eradic.
She wakes me at 5:30am to help her cope. For most of the morning the contractions are quite painful, but she works through them like a champ.
They calm down around noon, and we have an ok afternoon sitting at home, watching me rearrange the art on the walls.
At 3:30, our friend Jen convinces us to postpone the baby shower -- good move, Jen, considering we're now at the hospital and it's 20 after 11am.
Around 5pm the contractions kick up again, and soon become overwhelming. So we called the doc, who recommended we come in for a checkup. Trip #1 to the hospital! We get here, find out she's now 2cm dilated, and 100% effaced. Still too early to check in to the hospital, so they give D what they think is a good enough dose of medicine to quash the pain and send us home to rest around 9:30pm.
With D hitting the hay, I use the opportunity to wrap things up at my office in preparation for 4 weeks paternity leave. The whole place is going to fall apart without me, but I'm ok with that! Trouble was, Danielle wasn't able to sleep. Random painful contractions, that the morphine didn't seem to have any effect on. So we try a bath for D, which is somewhat ok, but it turns out our tub isn't really built for a pregnant lady. Go figure!
After the bath, I finish up a couple other loose ends: write a note for Morgan, who is going to be taking care of Lucy for us (Thank You Morgan!), and draft a text message to be sent out to the chosen few for when we head back into the hospital later. We both try to catch some shut-eye, in 3-5 minute bursts, which, as it turns out, is not very effective at much other than making us cranky.
At 4:30am Sunday, we decide to call the doc and are told to head back to the hospital. This pain is just too unbearable. Hospital trip #2! New diagnosis: still 2cm. NO progress. And still too early to be admitted. So this time they decide to give us the full dose instead of a partial, to help Danielle (and me) get some sleep.
We leave the hospital at 6:15am and it's now daylight. By the time we get home, Danielle is still contracting, but the urge to sleep is pretty overwhelming. We get inside, and both hit the hay quickly. Danielle is finally able to get some sleep. Until...
45 minutes later, Danielle's bag of waters breaks. At least we think so. One more call to the doc, and a confirmation that we should come back to the place we left not a1.5 hours ago.
I quickly walk Lucy, and then we're on our way back. Hospital trip #3, and this it's for real! Diagnosis: 3cm! And yes, D's water did break. We're doing it. Get checked in, and moved to our "birthing room" (video of the room here: http://royalbacon.com ).
Now here we are, 12:45pm and D is quite sleepy still due to the lingering early-morning drugs, but now that she's free of pain she's also quite jovial. She's up to 4cm. More to come, if I find another quiet moment again.
Can't wait -- tiny's going to be here soon!
