Hayden's birth story part 2

This is continued from part 1 here.

So there I sat surrounded by my family filled with excitement. I felt a little funny telling THEM to settle down. But it was definitely worth the chuckle. After trying to eat the soup I was ready to head to the hospital.

When we arrived I was hoping that the Holistic Birthing Suite would be empty and that I would be admitted there, but first they had to make sure I was really in labor. We sat around for a while with me on the monitors and nary a contraction happening. I was beginning to doubt the fluid I saw since it wasn’t a huge leaking feeling but just that little bit of fluid. Finally the midwife came in to do a test to see if it was really amniotic fluid.

Ok so I have to stop to tell you a funny thing that happened at this point. One of our many relatives had called to ask for an update on whether this was it or not and when Steve was explaining that we were about to get a test done to see if I was leaking amniotic fluid the question was asked, “So we are waiting to see if she’s leaking antibiotic fluid?” Too funny!

So the midwife does the test and announces that yes it is amniotic fluid. I was so happy to know I was staying and that within the next few hours I would be meeting my little guy! And to top it off the Holistic Birthing Suite was available! I was thrilled! What a beautiful room to give birth in.

The next step was for me to walk around and to see if I would start to contract regularly. At this point there was also some talk of if I had a smaller bag of amniotic fluid surrounding the bigger bag that actually held my son and that maybe only the smaller one had ruptured. But for now they just had me walk and walk. I didn’t mind. I was pretty comfortable and I wanted to get some more progression going. At this point I was only about 4cm and 50 to 60% effaced. My sister was there and she walked with me and got a doctor’s note for missing her college class that night. Then my mom arrived and she got a note too. It was a regular party in the hallways of the hospital! This is one of the things I love about my births. With the arrival of every child my family shows up to support me and to wait excitedly to meet the newest member of the family.

 And by a party I mean a party! This time my dad stopped his work in the next state over and drove a few hours so that he could arrive hopefully on time to meet his new grandson as soon as he was born. My stepmom was there and so were my mom and my sister.  Of course Steve was there and this time Savanna, who was not quite 15. Our older boys, James and Russell, were sitting right outside the room with my dad and my mom’s boyfriend.

After walking around for a little bit it was obvious I wasn’t contracting very much and that my bigger bag of amniotic fluid must have still been intact. So the next step was for the midwife to break my water.

To be continued….