Megan's Birth Story (Part 1)

The photo at the right is one my mom took at 8:50 on April 21. Megan was born about 6 1/2 hours later.

Some like to read labor and birth stories and some don't. All I know for sure is that nearly every mom I know and many of the people I know who want to BE moms sometime soon have been interested in hearing our story. So here goes.

My due date was April 15, my sister's birthday. The Frozen Four was the weekend before that. Luckily it was in Milwaukee so Todd was close by in case I went into labor. Needless to say, Todd was very happy that Megan decided to come a week late rather than a week early!

Throughout pregnancy, I was nervous that something would happen (like my water breaking) while I was teaching. Since she still wasn't out by then, I quit working after my due date and proceeded to sit around for a week rather than increase the chances of traumatizing my students by going into labor right before their eyes.

So there Todd and I were-- the hockey season over and no more school to worry about. It became a waiting game. We looked for things to do every day, just to pass the time. We mall walked, we went to the zoo, we watched movies.

We went to the doctor on Tuesday. There had been little progress to note since the week before. I was getting tired of pregnancy and itching to move on to the next step by that point. The doctor said he'd be willing to induce me on Monday, so I was a little less frustrated. I knew I'd have the baby Monday at the very latest.

After I made the update phone calls to all the family and friends, my mom called back. She decided to book a last minute flight to Wisconsin now that we had a much smaller window of time that the baby would be arriving. She figured she'd come to keep us company during the end of the wait and then be around to help during the induction. The plan was that she'd fly in Friday evening and fly out Tuesday.

After hanging out with me all week, Todd had an opportunity to go in to work for a morning desk shift on Friday. We thought it couldn't hurt to give him a chance to get out (and away from me!) for a few hours.

I woke up feeling what, at the time, felt like significant contractions about 4:30 on Friday morning. When Todd's alarm clock went off at 5:15, I told him what was going on. I didn't think what I was feeling was the real thing just yet, so I told him to go and that I'd call if the contractions started to intensify or get closer together. By 9:00, the nurse told me to go in to the hospital (contractions were 3-4 mins apart) so Todd came home to drive me.

We sat at the hospital for a few hours in triage and then they told us to go home. They weren't willing to say if I was in false labor or early labor but a nurse told us on the sly that I should rest up and eat some spicy food because she thought I'd be back soon. So I did. We stopped at Qdoba and I, for the first time in my life, added as much hot sauce as I could handle to my burrito. We drove home and I took a nap. When I woke up a few hours later, my contractions were noticeably stronger, but since I didn't want to go in and be sent home again, we waited.

To be continued...