A Day We Will Never Forget.

It all began on Saturday, November 6th. Austin had to attend a school convention for most of the day, so I decided that it would be a perfect time for me to get out and do some activities to bring about labor. I was so anxious to finally have our little boy in my arms! So what did I do? I walked, and walked, and walked some more. First, I shopped and strolled around the mall with my mom and sister for four hours. Then, we went and shopped at Costco for another hour and a half. That was followed by a trip to Albertsons for another hour. I was exhausted by the time we finally got home, but made another trip to the mall an hour later to shop with my hubby.

Throughout the entire day I was having mild contractions and loving it! I wanted to keep walking all night long to make them get stronger. To our surprise, the next event happened so fast. When Austin and I were driving away from the mall that night, I lost the plug that protects the amniotic sac surrounding the baby!!! We were thrilled! This was when my contractions finally started coming on stronger and closer together. W knew that my water could break at any moment, so we went home and waited... I walked up and down the stairs for what seemed like forever, and sped-walked around the neighborhood with Austin until I couldn't anymore. I was exhausted and my feet were definitely agreeing!

I didn't have any big signs of my water breaking so we finally decided to 'go to bed.' Keep in mind that I was still having some contractions at this point that were about 10-14 minutes apart. I didn't want to go to the hospital for fear that they would tell me to wait until my water had officially broken. Austin and I were up all night long timing my contractions with hope that they would get closer together. I also thought that I was still losing my 'plug' as well due to all the bathroom runs that I was making.

By Sunday morning, my contractions were about 10 minutes apart and much worse so we decided that we better go to the hospital to see what was going on. We were taken into triage where they test to see if you can be admitted into labor and delivery. At this point, I was still worried that they would just send me back home! But when the nurses came back into the room after running my tests, they had an IV bag in their hands and told me that I was in!!! Little did I know that my water had really broken at 7:30 pm the night before and I had been in active labor all night!

Now, this is where it gets fun! I was told that my water had broken too early. We know this because my body was very far from being ready to deliver. Let's just say that it was as far from it as anyone could possibly get. I was barely dilated at all and was hardly even effaced! We were quickly informed that this would be a long labor. I did not mind. I would do anything that would give us our son.

So, to show you a summary of our Sunday, I will go by hour:

9:08 am - Arrive at Banner Gateway.
10:00 am - Officially admitted into Labor and Delivery Room 8.
10:50 am - Begin  IV Oxytocin. [This is a hormone that is used for inducing women. Since I was so far away from dilating, they began me on this right away. Mind you, this also brings on contractions much worse than doing it naturally...]
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4:00 pm - Doctor Mikels [doctor-on-call for my regular OB/GYN] comes in to see my dilation. He unfortunately told me that nothing had changed. I was still far from delivery.
**My contractions were now about 2-3 minutes apart and very painful. But there was no way I was getting an epidural only dilated to a 1!
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7:00 pm - Begin fake epidural. I was having contractions every minute, so I was given some medicine through the epidural tube that was not as strong as the real stuff.
7:30 pm - Given antibiotics through my IV. By this time, my water had been broken for 24 hours and the doctor feared infection.
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8:26 pm - Water officially breaks! The leak had finally been broken!
9:00 pm - The nurse tests to find that I am finally dilated to a 2...
9:30 pm - Given the real epidural. Bad contractions.
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10:40 pm - Given an oxygen mask. Every time my one-minute contractions would come, the baby's heart rate would sadly drop about 40-50 bpm below normal. He was hurting... The oxygen mask fortunately helped a lot!
10:50 pm - The doctor cut my Oxytocin in half. By this point I was at the highest dosage possible and they wanted to half-it to see if my body would start dilating on its own.
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12:00 am - The nurse comes back in to test my dilation. She was shocked and had another nurse check to see if this miracle could really happen with me... I was dilated to a 10 and ready to push!!! Had I really gone from 2 centimeters to 10 centimeters in three hours???
12:20 am - Begin practice pushing with the nurse.
12:40 am - The doctor arrives at the hospital once more.
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1:42 am - Baby Ryker is born!!!!!!

Ryker is a dream come true! He is perfectly healthy and we could not be more grateful. There is nothing in this world that we would not do for him.

This definitely was a day we will never forget!!!