Sunday November 8th 2009

Soooo... Saturday we decided to go grocery shopping and figured we should make a bunch of food to freeze. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I started on lasagna, a baked ziti dish, rice/mushrooms, veggies... a bit overkill for one night because I was up until 2:45am. I finally made it to bed, and Shonna mentions that she "may" have had a contraction at 2am but not 100% sure. I figured, "all of the things I've read and stories I've heard, if she DID have a contraction I have plenty of time to get some sleep and head off to the hospital in the morning.

7am- Shonna wakes me up confirms that she has been having contractions, and is concerned that her contractions are getting closer and closer QUICKLY. She asks me to time them. At the beginning of her contraction and I hit the stopwatch and waited for her next contraction. Fully expecting to see an 8 or 9 next to the "minute" hand, I did a double take when I clicked the stopwatch and noticed it stopped at 4 minutes 50 seconds. WHAT??? How did that happen so fast??? I checked again. 4 minutes? I thought it had to be a mistake. The next one hit 5:15, so I thought "ok, QUICK shower and off to the hospital (I last showered Friday morning, so I felt it was necessary to at least attempt to rinse off.) I called the OB, left a message with their answering service, then I jumped in the shower. Done in a flash, we packed the car and I noticed Shonna had one of those looks like "holy crap, we need to leave NOW". We prepared quite a bit for this situation, but none of the books, baby classes, or life stories prepared us for how quickly this was happening.

8am- after the 15 minute drive and walk to the nurses station, we went into our room, I dropped the luggage off, and went back to the car to get the rest of the stuff and to park. I called Shonna's sister Tracy on the way back to the room (I only had about 3 minutes of good cell coverage so I had to move quickly.) I set a call tree in motion so that our immediate family and others would know what was happening. My plan was to text or email numbers for Tracy to call because I would not have good cell coverage, AND Shonna was progressing faster than expected. I attempted to call my mom, but cell coverage got the best of me. I was able to leave a message with David on my 2nd/3rd attempt, and actually talked to her shortly after.

8:15- By the time I returned to the room, Shonna was worried that I was going to miss the delivery, but she was diagnosed to be 6 cm dilated. Shonna and I (and help from the staff) figured we had at least a couple of hours before she would have to start pushing. The staff was very impressed that we waited that long to check into the hospital, especially considering its our first. We looked at each other and thought to ourselves, "It was part of our research" :)

8:30- Shonna's next contraction was powerful. So powerful that the nurse asks Shonna, "are you SURE you don't want an epidural?" No, lets wait and see. Plus we haven't talked to an OB yet (no one from our clinic is on call, but the Dr who was originally at the top of Shonna's OB list was on call. Side note- The OB's staff member told us we wouldn't be able to see this Dr until July for our initial apt, which is why we chose another practice. Boy was she annoyed and embarrassed that this happened.

8:40am- Shonna's contractions are so strong that she is certain her body wants her to start pushing. She mentions this and the nurse immediately checks her cervix. FULL DILATION!!!! WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!!! We haven't even seen an OB yet. 5 minutes later the OB appears and the show begins. Shonna's feet went into the stirrups, plastic was scattered around the room like we were getting ready to paint it (brought back painful memories of stripes). Shonna had a contraction, and OOOOPS, her right leg went crashing down because the stirrup IS BROKEN!?!? As it turns out, there have been A HANDFUL of similar occurrences this week on separate beds. Did this hospital renovate everything but the foot straps? Seems strange. Anyway, back to the labor. Shonna's water hasn't broken yet, so the OB takes care of that first with a special (and in Shonna's eyes EVIL) tool, that appears to be pretty painful. Shonna was in more pain than any contraction so far. Of course that changed quickly- the contractions would get more painful... The next contraction occurred, and the OB started coaching Shonna on breathing. "Its almost here so take a deep breath, let it out, take another one and hold and push for a count of 10". I'M CERTAIN this is much easier said than done. Shonna did inhale, release, inhale and begin to hold and push, but the "hold" quickly turned to "grunt" similar to a weightlifter, which releases air and decreases the power of the push. It didn't take Shonna long to make the adjustment. 2 or 3 more contractions/pushes, and "there's the head!" Shoulders followed, and with one more push there she was.

9:08am- Scarlett Aurora Waters Waltrup (we are giving her 2 middle names, not a hyphenated past name), born 7 pounds 9 ounces, 20.5 inches long, beautiful baby girl with already more hair than I have! I'm pretty sure we will bombard you with more pictures than you know what to do with, so I'm only adding a couple teasers here. Every staff member involved was simply amazed. "I've never seen anything like this especially for a first child. THIS IS REALLY YOUR FIRST??? If you have a 2nd, make sure you are in the hospital at the first sign of pain. The next one may happen even faster. " I can't imagine a quicker turnaround. It took 7 total hours from first sign to birth, and according to the OB, 60-90 minutes from the first REAL contractions to delivery. We (er Shonna) went from 6cm to birth in about 50 minutes, and 6cm to full dilation in 30 min. CRAZY! As we joked during our 9 months, Shonna is built for this :)


We will follow up with another report to detail minutes 9:09 through Monday pm. Until then, hope you enjoyed it!