Logan’s birth story

05/22/2013

I wasn’t due until the middle of February, but on the morning of Sunday, January 27th I woke up at 4:30am.  I had a weird feeling and my mind was racing.  I couldn’t fall back asleep.  I was thinking of all the things I should be doing that day.  Then shortly after 5am, I felt something.  My water broke!  I tapped my husband, Terry on the arm. I got up and sure enough, there was water running down my leg.  I hurried to make sure everything we needed was in the hospital bag, as Terry loaded the car.

I had to be assessed in triage first to make sure that my water did break.  They hooked me up to machines to monitor the baby’s heart beat and monitor contractions.  At this point, I was just having back pain, but it felt like the contractions were getting stronger.  They checked me and I was 3cm dilated.  The nurse came in and said “Congratulations, you are going to have a baby today!”.

I was transferred to a delivery room.  The room was nice and bright with a beautiful view.  A resident came in and checked me again.  I still was only about 3-4cm dilated. They wanted to induce me to get the contractions going stronger.  I asked for an epidural first.  They said I had to wait about an hour because the anaesthesiologist was doing a c-section.  I said that was fine.  Even though, it did turn into almost 2 hours. The contractions still felt like back pain. Then the anaesthesiologist came in.  I had to lean over the table very still and Terry kept me steady.  They tested to see if the epidural worked with an ice cube.  They put the ice cube on my arm so I can feel the cold, then they rub it on my stomach and legs.  I could feel something, but not the cold.  After the epidural was started, they induced me.  By this time it was around 12:30pm.  The resident wanted to induce me before the epidural, but I had a really great nurse.  She knew what I wanted and waited.

In the rush to get to the hospital, we forgot the baby bag!  I told Terry he could go home and take the dogs out and get the baby bag. The nurse said she expected that I would have the baby before midnight, but not necessarily by the time she ended her shift, which was 7pm.  I figured we had lots of time.

The epidural kicked in and I felt a bit better.  I was hungry, but I was limited to what I could have.  They gave me a popsicle, jello and a ginger ale.  The contractions got stronger and I could feel a lot of pressure on my bladder.  Terry got back around 2:30pm and then they checked me.  I was fully dilated!  She said I should wait about an hour before I start pushing, because it helps move the baby down and it’s less work with pushing.  I went through a couple more contractions, but felt that I was probably 10cms dilated for a while.  They asked me to start pushing.  My contractions were sporadic…. I would have 2 close together, then have a 4 minute break.  It made pushing a little more difficult.  I had 2 nurses, a medical student and the resident in the room.  My guess is I was pushing for less than an hour, then at 4:13pm our little Logan Robert Thomas Bell was born.  Terry cut the cord and took a couple of pictures while they weighed him.  They cleaned him and wrapped him up and gave him to me. He weighed 7lbs, 0 ozs and was 19.25″ long. Of course he was perfect.

It turns out Sunday, January 27th was a full moon!