My birth story with Brandon

Here is how is all happened :

April 17 - Doctor visit and was checked. Dr Monica told me I was maybe 1cm dilated. It will probably be another week.
April 18 - 3 am - Mucus plug came out. I was actually awake and was wondering if water broke. Confirmed that it was the mucus plug so I googled and it said possibly couple more days before baby ariives.
I did feel some contractions as I was sleeping, but I ignored them.
7 am - contractions were stronger. I asked Gordon if he was going into work and he said yes....
8 am - contractions were 5 minutes apart. Told Gordon not to go to work and go drop the kids off to pre-school.
8.20am - on the way to the hospital. Contractions were 3 minutes apart and water broke in the car.
9.00am - arrive at hospital. The triage nurse took another hour to complete all the paperwork and questions. Doctor checked and said 7-8cm dilated.

Time is of essence if I want to get the epidural. The doctor mentioned that the anesthesiologist is working on an emergency and may not get to me. Yes, I was asking for the epidural too many times in the triage room and the nurse said "we have to send you to the room ro get the IV before they can give you the epi".....

We entered the labor room and the doctor checked me. She said "fully dilated, minus 1". Let's try and push. I am sure I glared at the doctor cos I really wanted the epidural!

They finally gave me fentanyl to help with the pain.

When I pushed, they found that baby was too high and did not drop yet. So, they called in the anesthesiologist for my epidural. Hooray!

The anesthesiologist took about 30 minutes to get the epi. They could not find the right location to put the needle. They even had the head anesthesiologist take over to help. In the meantime, I focused on my breathing cos I knew that the pain relieve was coming! :)

When the epi worked, I was the nicest person...... I gave the nurse in charge smiles..with the epi, the contractions slowed down, so I had time to rest and relax.

After a while, the nurse said that baby's heart rate was going down everytime I had a contraction. possibly the contractions were pressing on the placenta. She called in the doctor and decided I should push to get the baby out.

The pushing was about 40 minutes. We did have to vacuum baby out towards the end and he came out fine. The doctor did say that if the vacuum did not work, he would have to do a c-section. So, when I pushed, I made sure I pushed hard so I did not have to do a c-section!

Overall, the birth was considered easy. It was quick with little complications. I was surprised that the contractions came so much faster compared to Dylan's birth. Gordon was worried that baby would come out in the car when the water burst.(hehe).