I was supposed to be induced at 4:30 AM on January 15,2002.  We called the hospital at 4:00 AM to make sure they had a bed open for us.  Well, they didn’t have a nurse for me as they were in he middle of three C-Sections.  They said that they would call me in a few hours and let me know when to come in.  So, Rob and I sat around and waited.  Thankfully, just before 6 AM the hospital called and said that they would have a nurse available for me at 7 AM.  So, Rob and I headed for McDonald’s for breakfast for him.  I ate his hashbrowns since I was allowed to eat a light breakfast.
We arrived at the hospitalat 6:45 AM and then waited in the Maternity Ward lobby for our nurse to arrive. At about 7:15 AM our doctor walked in to the hospital and our nurse happened o have been up at the check-in desk.  She said, "Dr. Fenton, I was just about to take your patient back."  So Rob and I stood up, greeted our Doctor and introduced ourselves to the nurse, Carmen.  We went back to LD Room 5 and I got ready for the ride of my life.

At 7:40 AM, my doctor came in to check me.  I was still 1-2 cm dilated,but he said my cervix was almost 100% effaced.  He then broke my water and told the nurse to start me on the pitocin at 1 mu and to move up from there.  Carmen then tried to put the IV in me 4 TIMES.  My veins kept rolling on her.  The fourth time was a charm and they were able to start the pitocin at approximately 8:30 AM.  My mom arrived during all this and was confused as to why they hadn’t started the process yet. Rob and I brought her up to date.  At that point I wasn’t feeling thecontractions.  They upped the dosage of pitocin by 1 mu every 20 minutes and at around 10:00 AM, they were to 5 mu. 

That’s when I went from the Braxton-Hicks contractions to the transition type contractions.  They were suddenly coming at 90-sec durations and only 5 seconds apart.  I had not anticipated this.  My body went in to automatic mode that it was time and I started to vomit up the applejuice that I had drunk an hour before.  At that point, no more food or water.  Rob felt so helpless.  At 10:30 AM, Carmen came to me and said, "I know you didn’t want an epidural, but I have to give you thisinformation.  The anesthesiologist has to do a C-Section at 12:00 and he won’t be available until after 1:00 if you want him later.  If you want an epidural, we’ll have to do it before he goes in to the C-Section." That was all I needed.  I wanted the epidural.  There was no way I was going to make it to 1:00.  I wasn’t able to relax enough to let myself dilate.  Carmen checked me and I was at about 3.5 cm.  My doctor didn’t want me to have the epidural until I was at least 4, but Carmen was looking out for me and assured the anesthesiologist that I was 4.
Well, the anesthesiologist had trouble giving me the epidural.  He stuck me 6 TIMES.  This during the awful contractions, of course, and me not being allowed to move.  Talk about difficult.  Well, the epidural was finally in at 11:50 and Rob asked how long before it should take effect. We were told 10-12 minutes.  I don’t think I’ve ever been happier that the doctor gave a time longer then it was in my life.  I had almost instant relief.

But then there was another problem, my blood pressure dropped to 80 over 33.  I turned extremely pale and Carmen was quite concerned.  She had me lie on my left side to try to bring my blood pressure back up and was taking it every 2 minutes.  The baby’s heart rate never varied during this time, thankfully.  After about 40 minutes, my blood pressure stabilized but they did keep a sharp eye on it.  They called my nurse over to a different delivery at that point since there was a risky one in Room 1 and she was the most experienced nurse on the floor.  Her replacement wasn’tas good or nice, but I have no complaints about her.

At 1:00 PM, Rob went out to make some phone calls and give everyone the update. At 1:15 PM, the replacement nurse checked me for the heck of it, as she said, and looked at me surprised and said, "You’re complete.  You’re about ready to push." My mom and I looked at each other in disbelief.  My mom said, "She can’t start pushing, Rob isn’t here."  The nurse looked at me and said, "Well, you are only at about +2 station, let’s wait a bit and let the contractions push the baby down a bit so that you don’t have to work as hard later."  I was fine with that since I wanted Rob there. He walked in about 1:30 and my mom and I laughed as I said, "Glad you made it."  When he looked at me rather confused, I explained that I was almost ready to push.  He got this excited look in his eyes and smiled.

At 1:50 PM, Carmen came back and checked me and said that I was definitely complete and with the next contraction to try pushing and see what happens. With that push I brought the baby to one inch of coming out.  Unfortunately,the baby got stuck.  You see, the baby was faced the wrong way and was now getting stuck on my pubic bone.  I tried my best to push the head past, but just couldn’t do it.  My doctor came to check on me at 3:45 and said, let’s give it a half hour and if you still can’t get the head past the pubic bone I think that we should use the vacuum.  I told him we would consider it.  He was concerned that the baby was starting to show a tad bit of distress.  Rob and I discussed it and we agreed that because I was starting to get tired, and we trusted Dr. Fenton completely, we would opt for the vacuum.  At 4:20, he came in and watched me push and said that the baby wasn’t going anywhere and asked what we wanted.  Rob told him we would go with the vacuum.  Dr. Fenton assured us that he starts it off slow and only does 3 attempts.  He then put the vacuum cap onthe head, hooked everything up.  He said that he could tell from there that I was going to tear pretty badly and he wanted to do an episiotomy. I nodded my head that that was ok and he did a one-suture cut.  He told me that a contraction was coming and he wanted me to give it everything I had.  He told Carmen to give him just a little suction, as he wanted to see the reaction.  With the first push, he was able to guide herhead out and remove the vacuum.  The next push, same contraction, her shoulders came out.  He said, one more push and you’ll have your baby. The nurse then told me to look down and see my baby.  The next thing I know a head is raised up and put on my belly/chest.  The nurse started to clean the baby off and said, "Dr. Fenton, you haven’t told them what they had yet."  Dr. Fenton then said, "Oh yeah, you didn’t want to know at the ultrasound."  He looked at the baby and said, "Congratulations, you have a girl."  Rob and I both just teared up, we couldn’t believeit.  Then Dr. Fenton noticed that she was having trouble getting all the mucus out of her lungs and said, "Carmen, take care of that now." Carmen apologized and promised to bring her back as soon as possible. Rob looked at my mom and she nodded her head and Rob took off to the other side of the room to make sure she was ok.  My mom just kept smiling at me and assuring me that the baby would be fine.  Dr. Fenton then said, "Ok Theresa, give me a little push here and let’s get this placenta out."  So, afterbirth was about 5 minutes after our little girl was born.  Once Dr. Fenton had finished sewing me up and such, my pulse rate went way up to 128.  They were a little concerned and wanted to keep an eye on me.

Meanwhile, Annalyn was announcing to the world that she was here and healthy. I got to hold her again when she was an hour old.  All I could do was cry; she was just so beautiful.  I couldn’t believe I had actually done this.  I lay there in disbelief as my legs started to slowly regain their feeling.  My pulse finally started to come down and the moved me to recovery.

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