Logan's Birth Story

In continuation of my late night contractions post...

I continued having progressive contractions that went from 5 minutes apart to about 3 1/2 minutes apart. At 4:45 I called my mom to let them know that I was in labor and we were both really excited! Unfortunately, a couple of hours later and my contractions had become really sporadic. I had been up since 1:00 am and was tired and actually managed to sleep for about 1 hour. I woke up at 7:00 and talked to Nathan about whether I should attempt going to work on no sleep. I called my mom and told her that it seemed to be a false alarm. I was really disappointed, as was my mom. I felt bad too, because I decided to stay home and my parents pretty much had to as well. I called work and explained the situation. Nathan hadn't decided whether or not he would attempt work yet as he kept waking up during the night.

Shortly after I called my office, I felt something happen and it looked like I was bleeding more. A few minutes later and there was a lot more fluid coming out. Because of my low lying placenta, Nathan and I decided to take no chances and we went to the hospital. It was like a 5 minute preparation and we were on our way. I had taken a shower during the night, but Nathan hadn't. I had, also, planned on putting on a teeny bit of makeup, but that didn't happen. I felt really dumb going to the hospital, because I was sure they would turn us away, but I wasn't about to put Logan at risk because of my hesitance.

We arrived at the hospital at about 8:00 am and went directly to the labor and delivery ward. They set me up in a room and I met the labor nurse, Michele. She was absolutely great! She set everything out for me and looked at what was going on and told me that she thought my water had broken! That got me really excited. What had confused me was the fact that it was pink in color, because of it's mixture with blood, but that wasn't an issue. She checked the fluid and confirmed that my water had broken. At that point I called my mom again and they were on their way to Valparaiso. Nathan started calling his family, too, to let them know. I was officially admitted at about 8:15 am and the whirlwind began.

The nurse immediately set up an IV of Pitocin to get my contractions going again. For a couple of hours my contractions got progressively worse, but I wasn't dilating anymore. The nurse asked a few times if I would like any pain management medication and I put it off until about 11:00 am. At that point she injected my IV port with Morphine and that helped the pain a lot for about 1/2 hour. It was strange, Logan kicked me and the real pain began during a contraction. The nurse helped me change my position a few times because Logan's heartbeat was lowering. We found that laying on my right side really helped. The labor pains were quite bad at this point and the nurse checked and confirmed that I had progressed from 2 cm dilation at admittance to 3 cm. She told me she would be back at 1:30 pm and that was the longest hour ever as my breathing techniques seemed to barely help me manage the pain. 1:30 finally came and I was 5 cm dilated. The epidural was ordered at that point and the doctor came pretty quickly. Let me tell you, I couldn't wait for the epidural. Getting the epidural really wasn't that painful and the medication started working within 10 minutes. For I while I couldn't feel much more than some pressure during contractions and I quickly dilated from 5 to 7 cm and finally to 10 cm. The nurse was getting really excited and by around 4:00 pm I was fully dilated and Logan was at stage 1.

During this time I could feel a lot of pressure and was really ready to push. I could tell that Logan was ready to come. We waited to see if he would move down further, but by 5:30 the nurse had me start pushing. My doctor arrived a bit later and I continued to push. What surprised me the most about pushing was how I went from not sweating to sweating in about 2 minutes. The amount of exertion and power it took to push amazed me and I really needed the recovery time after each set to get my breath, try to cool off, and mentally prepare myself for the next set.

I knew that it was almost over when my doctor put on scrubs and they started readying everything for Logan's arrival. As the doctor got into position, I remember asking her for an estimate of how many more times I would need to push. She said about 2 more sets and she was right. All I needed to hear was something that I could shoot for. Logan arrived on schedule and screaming!


He was all puffy, a little bloody, and as precious as could be! They wiped him down quickly on me and then took him to the warmer and assessed him. He scored a 9.9 out of 10 on the Apgar test and continued to scream until they handed him to me. I started talking to him and he immediately stopped crying. (Look to the photo for the first time I got to hold Logan.)

Logan was born at 6:19 pm on October 16, 2008. He weighed 8 lbs 0 oz. and was 20 1/2 inches long.