Griffin's Birth Day - Part 1

After my last doctor's appointment where we received the news I hadn't progressed much {still at a 1 and 50% effaced}, we checked into the hospital around 5 p.m. Of course, we couldn't just make it simple! Not only did we have all of our bags and Sonic drinks,

{not the best picture because of the sun! add in 2 bags for cody and 2 drinks and put us in the hospital!}

Cody was also videoing the whole process. I asked my dr. if I needed to go straight to Labor & Delivery, but she told me {or at least we heard} to go to the Admissions desk first. Well, we went to the first Admissions desk and it had a sign up that said "Be Back in 5" We didn't really want to wait a supposed 5 minutes, so we headed over to another Admissions desk. {our hospital has a new addition to it, hence the second admissions spot.} This one did at least have people at it, but as soon as they saw my belly, they were like, "Um, yeah, just head straight up to L & D!" So we headed out on our 3rd attempt to check in to the hospital. And yes, Cody does have each attempt on camera!

After making it up to L & D, we got settled into our room and I changed into the lovely hospital gown. The new addition of the hospital includes a new labor and delivery floor. Y'all, the rooms are sweet! I tried looking to see if we have a good picture of it, but none do it justice. Not only is the room huge with plenty of space for visitors, a couch that turns into a twin size bed for the hubby, and a generous size bathroom, everything for the delivery is done in the room. The bed converts into a delivery table, they have all the equipment they need to monitor mom and baby, the nursery staff comes into the room to do all of the baby's stats... it is fantastic! {if you're in abilene and need a place to deliver, go to hendrick!}



Back on track now, after getting situated in my lovely outfit, the nurse came in, asked lots of questions, hooked me up to the fetal heart sonogram and contraction monitor, then got my IV started. Even after going through all I have medically in my life, including 2 open heart surgeries, I am a super baby when it comes to IV's! Sadly, the nurse either missed the vein or it collapsed on her first try, so she ended up trying again and sticking it in the top of my left hand. In case you haven't had an IV recently, this is a HORRIBLE place to get one. It was super painful when she put it in, plus I could barely move my fingers and bend my hand. Trying to move it made me want to cry from the pain, which made me even more nervous about the next day! If I couldn't handle an IV, how was I going to have a baby?!?!?

The nurse came in about 6:45 and started me on the Cervidil medicine to help with my effacement progress. Getting that was not fun. It's like the pain of your doctor checking your progress times 57. Again, I wanted to cry and doubted my ability to have a baby! I couldn't get out of bed for 2 hours after the medicine was in. No bathroom breaks for 2 hours for a pregnant lady is torture! I think knowing I couldn't go made me have to go worse! My parents stopped by after 7 and brought Chick-Fil-A for dinner. One last treat before I was cut off from food and drinks at midnight!

7:00 signified a change of nurses, so I kindly asked my new nurse if there was any way she could try and move the location of my IV to somewhere less painful. {I probably should have asked the nurse who did the original IV if she could change it... but I didn't want to hurt her feelings!} Thankfully, she was able to move it into my right arm, which was a much better location. Plus it didn't even hurt when she put it in! {that's a really good nurse right there!}

I took my Kindle and really thought I would have time to read. Ha! Between everything the nurses did, my parents, grandparents and Cody's parents stopping by, the night passed really quickly. Soon enough it was 11 p.m. and Cody and I were getting ready for bed. Sadly, before I could go to sleep, I had to have one more addition to my body: a catheter. Because of my heart condition, they were watching my fluid intake and output very closely, hence the need for the catheter. Honestly, I had to have one in February when we went to the ER because the fibroid was keeping me from being able to go and I really don't remember it being that painful, so I wasn't phased about having to get one. Apparently I was in so much pain because my bladder was so full that I didn't realize how much it probably hurt at the time. So I wasn't worried about getting it, which was a BIG MISTAKE on my part! So, once again, for the 3rd time in a matter of hours, I questioned my ability to have a baby!!

Cody and I then set out to try and get some sleep before the big day. Our night nurse was a little {lotta} bit of a chatty Kathy. Of course she had to come in every hour to check stats and such and if I requested anything to her {ice chips}, it turned into a 20 minute process to get it taken care of. Needless to say, the chatting, the stat checking, no drinking or eating, the pain of the catheter... it made for a very unrestful last night's sleep. To top it all off, the nurse came in at 5 to take out the Cervidil and check my progress, where she determined that I was dilated to a 1 and 50% effaced. {happy birthday to me.}

As soon as she left the room, I just started bawling. I could not believe that I'd been through that painful of a night, only to make no progress at all. Cody was super sweet and gave me a nice pep talk about "we can't get upset until dr. mascorro checks you, she knows you better than the nurse will. I'm sure everything will be ok..." In hindsight I'm sure everything he said was really nice and that he meant well. In the moment though, I really just wanted to tell him to shut his trap! {I blame the hormones!}

I threw myself a nice pity party for the next hour. {see above note about hormones.} Chatty Kathy came in about 6 and started me on pitocin. My parents showed up a little bit later and we had my last birthday celebration. {I knew all along if Griffin and I shared a birthday... it will never be about me again!}

and then we began the longest wait ever for dr. mascorro to stop by and check my progress. She finally made it by at 8:30 and said...