On- Tuesday, January 27th, my mother-in-law arrived from Virginia. I had been walking the mall, drinking tea, eating spicy food- you name it-all in hopes that I would go into labor on my own. When she arrived, she told me she had to have a "talk" with Grace- and she told my belly that she had arrived, and that Grace could come now anytime. About an hour later, I was making dinner and I began to have menstrual like cramps, and continued to have them. At about 8:00 I could tell they were definitely contractions,and we began timing them. They were pretty close together but I could breathe and talk through them. Between 11:00 and 12:00, they got more severe and I started to feel extreme pressure. At 12:30 my contractions felt (to me) really strong and were 4-5 minutes apart, lasting between 50-60 seconds. At that point, I actually thought I was almost fully dilated and wondered if I'd make it to the hospital in time. Mike grabbed our bag and we headed to the hospital.
Well, I was only 1.5 cm dilated! I was shocked. They decided to admit me and monitor my contractions through the night. They gave me something to help ease the pain and help me sleep. I really don't remember much- everything seems like a blur from here. On Wednesday, I was making some slow progress- the contractions were terrible! I was trying really hard to not have an epidural- but I was not prepared for the pain! The contractions would get ahead of me- and I was struggling to breathe through them. Those relaxation techniques I had practiced went right out the window! By early afternoon, I had only dilated to 6 cm...and wasn't making much progress. My doctor wanted to give me pitocin to speed up the contractions and I knew this would make them much stronger. I decided to take the epidural she offered. With the pitocin, I labored for a little longer and only made it to 6.5 cm. At this point, nurses kept coming in and monitoring the screens and giving me oxygen but no one would tell me what was going on. My doctor finally came in and told me the baby was in distress and my cervix was swollen and not dilating. She said she wanted to do a c section- by that point, I was so tired I didn't even think I had the energy to push- I quickly agreed to the c-section. Things went really fast from there, I was prepped, Mike was gowned and I was wheeled to the freezing OR. I'll never forget hearing her cry for the first time- like music to my ears!
Grace Elizabeth Cox was born on January 28, 2009 at 3:42 in the afternoon weighing 6 pounds 15 ounces.
