"I wish your water would just go ahead and break tonight" were the famous words spoken from my husband's mouth just 15 minutes before the chaos began. At 8:45 pm those words were spoken and at 9 pm his wish came true. We got in the car and headed to the church. Yes, I said it, we went to the church to let Marc quickly set up some equipment for Sunday. Seeing that I was not having labor pains, I conceded, only if he would be quick. He was in and out in 5 minutes and we were headed to the hospital.
We arrived at Baptist Women's hospital at 9:30 pm and was being examined by 10. It was confirmed. I was officially in labor. By 11, I was being moved to a labor and delivery room where I was now feeling contractions. Only dilated 2 cm, the contractions started slowly coming about every 10 minutes. An hour later, they were every two minutes apart and extremely painful. The doctors concern was the baby's heart rate. Every time I would have a contraction, her heart rate would slow down dangerously. They flipped me and flopped me with every contraction, and poked and prodded me with every monitor to see if the baby was laying on her cord. There was no change. By 1 am, they were preping us for an emergency c-section.
Through all this, I was surprisingly very calm. I knew I had good doctors working on me and that they could get the baby out quickly. Marc was great. He was by my side the entire time. I didn't know exactly how he would react in the o.r. because we had never discussed the possibility of having a c-section. He sat by my head and held my hand the entire time. He even looked over the sheet when the doctor wanted to show him things that I wouldn't have even wanted to see. He kept me posted about what they were doing with Riley and took pictures. At 1:34 am, our precious little girl was here, weighing in at 5lb 11 oz. (What? Just Thursday the ultra sound said 7lb 11oz) She was 2 pounds lighter than projected. Marc got to hold her immediately after she arrived but with all the people working on me I had only a glimpse.
The doctors took Riley to clean her up and check her out. Initially there were some respiratory concerns that needed to be monitored. I was wheeled off to recovery. Marc was back and forth between the family who was watching the nurses work on Riley in the nursery, and me who was in and out of sleep in post op. I have to say I had some fun in post op trying to move my legs that felt like a ton of bricks. I would try and try only to be unsuccessful. At one point I tried so hard I got tickled at myself.
Around 4:30 am we were being moved to a room. Getting off the elevator on the fourth floor, my entire family was waiting to greet us. We got hugs and kisses and they told me they had been watching Riley for hours getting cleaned up and fed. I informed them they had seen her more than I had and that I had only a glimpse of her after surgery. Hearing this, the nurses decided to break the rules a bit and wheel me to the nursery doors to see her.
After this, it was on to the my room where my family finally got to come in around 6 a.m. Exhaustion had set in. Marc and I were ready for some rest. Little did we know we would be interrupted what seemed like every 15 minutes. The best interruption, however, was when the nurses brought Riley into the room around 6:30 a.m. for us to hold. They informed us that the initial reparatory concerns were no longer a problem and that she was eating great. We visited with her for about 30 minutes and then sent her back to the nursery where we knew she would be in good hands so we could get some much needed rest. The rest of our visit at Baptist women's hospital was fantastic. We couldn't have asked for a better experience and the nurses and doctors were so nice and experts in their field. We are truly blessed how things worked out and God's timing was perfect!
