But this little girl didn't want to wait till her induction date.

I had posted last weekend about going to L & D Friday night for PTL and the on call OB being very dismissive. Well Monday I went in to see my regular OB for my NST. Told her about what had happened and that baby had been moving less. She was talking to me about getting the steroid injections to help Baby's lungs since we knew the plan was to induce in a week and a half anyways. Just as she was about to let me off the monitors Baby started having weird decelerations. So my regular OB sent me over to L & D to receive the first steroid shot, get out back on the monitors, and basically have all the pre-labor tests run (cbc, group B strep, urine drug screen, ect) plus run liver enzyme and bile salt tests. She checked in after office hours and said she wanted to keep me just to be safe since I was contracting even though baby hadn't had any more decelerations.

So Monday into Tuesday spent the night in monitors, my poor nurse has to keep coming in to adjust the monitors because baby refused to stay on (yes I know it was her job, but they had a a few women in labor too). No decelerations over night till right before shift change, then Baby had a few random ones again. OB stopped in to say she was keeping me until at least after my second steroid shot.

Spent all day on the monitors with baby looking good, and then another random deceleration spell in the evening. OB came in after office hours to let me know she had consulted with the high risk OB and they both felt that with the PTL, the risk of stillbirth with Cholestasis, and the random decelerations that we had reached the point where it was going to be safer for baby to be born than stay put. She waited till midnight to start induction just to give the steroids a little longer to work and so that I would officially be 35 weeks.

Midnight came and the nurse started the fluids and the antibiotics since my group B wasn't back yet. Pitocin started at about 12:50. I was measured to be 4.5cm, 80% effaced, baby in the 0 station when they started the pit. Contractions were regular but I was able to still rest. She checked on me every half hour after the first hour to turn up the pit. About 4am she turned the pit up to 6ml/hr and that was my breaking point as far as being able to stay still and rest. I could feel the pain really bad in my hips and back and knew I needed to get up and move so baby could shift into place more.

I woke Daddy up and the nurses came and tried to get baby's heartbeat on the blue tooth monitor but couldn't. So after confirming yes she was doing fine they said I could walk for a bit and then they would come get me and have me get back into bed to use the stationary monitor to get a good 20 minute tracing of her heartbeat. I'm not sure how many laps around the unit I did but my SO walked with me with the IV pole and was fantastic making me laugh during contractions making NASCAR sounds.

Nurses came and got me said it was time to do a tracing, this was about 4;30ish. I went to the restroom first and the nurse asked if I was feeling pressure, I said just a little and she decided to check me. I expected to be 6 or 7 at this point. Nope! I was a 9 or 10, fully effaced, head down low only thing holding her back was my water that hadn't ruptured yet.

So things went from 0 to 100 in my room, Everyone rushing around to get set up for delivery. At this point I am on my hands and knees leaning forward with my chest on a pillow my mom pressing on my hips, my SO letting me cut off all circulation to his hand, and a nurse physically holding the sensor to my belly to keep baby on it. I was at the point of "I can't do this" But too late for any pain relief I had committed myself to the natural birth I had been planning.

The nurses get everything set up, have my flip over on my back, every time the door opens you can see the look of "please let that be the doctor". You could tell on the nurses faces they were prepared to deliver the baby I'd they had to, but we're really hoping for a doctor to make it.

Next contraction my water broke as my OB walks through the door, she hurries into place, ruptures my water bag the rest of the way and says "okay you can push if you feel like you need to." I took the green light and pushed with all my might to get baby girl out so the pain would stop. Not even a full push count and she was out, helped that she was tiny!

Baby was born at 5:12am weighing 4lbs 15oz and 19in long on April 11th at 35 weeks gestation exactly. She only stayed in NICU for 27 hours, and we were able to be released for home at 3 days after birth. We are both doing great, she nurses like a champ and we are enjoying adjusting to being a family of 5.