November baby became an October baby

Up until the last few weeks of my pregnancy, I had no complications. Then I noticed that my blood pressure was slowly increasing each week but the doctor wasn’t too concerned since it was still in the normal range.

On 10/25 my fiancé told me he was having something delivered to the house after I was off work and to expect it around 6. A little before 6 I hear a car pull in our driveway and when I look outside I saw it was my mom! I had strong contractions the night before, but they weren’t close enough together to go in. My mom knew about that and decided to drive the four hour distance to come visit and make sure I was okay. I was so happy to see her that I cried. I mentioned my concern about my blood pressure the next day to her (she’s a nurse and teaches nursing) and she agreed it was a bit strange especially since I usually had really low blood pressures.

That day she noticed that my typical swelling had really increased, and that the next morning it hadn’t gone down like it usually does. As the day goes on, I started to get a headache and my swelling in my feet gets worse. I call labor and delivery and they said I could go and get tested for preeclampsia so my fiancé, mom and I head in. They hook me and our little one up to the monitor and he starts moving away and showing how active he is. They run some tests and take my blood pressure several times. While my tests came back in the normal range, they were concerned about my blood pressure and tell me to come back and see the doctor on Monday.

Monday comes around and I get a call saying my appointment is at 9:15. I wake my mom up - my fiancé was already at work- and call him and let him know. He found a way to get off work and met my mom and I at the hospital. The doctor checks my vitals and swelling, and said everything looks okay but they wanted to talk to the ob “guru” and get their opinion. When she came back she said that they decided to go ahead and induce me! The reasoning was that I was borderline preeclampsia and since I was going to be 39 weeks on Halloween, they didn’t want to wait for something bad to happen to me or our little one. She sends us up to labor and delivery, and my fiancé and mom are busy calling family to let them know what was going on. Up in the room the doctors check my cervix, and said I’m still 4 cm dilated and 75% effaced like I was the week before, and give me a medicine to kick start my contractions, and said they’d be back in 4 hours to start pitocin. Later in the afternoon I’m checked again and had no change so they start the pitocin.

All throughout the afternoon and night they keep adjusting it - increasing it when needed, and decreasing the dosage when my contractions were coming too close together. There were times when I was getting no break between contractions because of the medicine. Night comes around and I’m unable to sleep because my contractions were so uncomfortable to sit or lay down through so I stood and watched catfish with my mom while my fiancé slept. Around 5 I decide to kneel on a pillow and rest my upper body on a chair and rock. I’m half asleep doing this when I felt a huge POP. I told my mom and she had me stand up because she thought my water broke and my fiancé called the nurse in. I stood up and immediately had water going down my legs, and my contractions got really intense and close together. I got cleaned up and ended up kneeling on the floor again with my head in my fiancé’s lap clutching him because my contractions were so intense. The doctor checks me again and said I’m 5-6 cm dilated and I ask for an epidural because my contractions were so intense. I get the epidural and I’m immediately giggling away at nothing, at this point I had been awake for 24 hours.

I couldn’t stop giggling and my fiancé and mom were amused by it.

I rest in bed but i still feel my contractions in my lower abdomen and back so they adjust my epidural. At 8 am the doctors come in and tell me they want to put an internal monitor to monitor my contractions since the one on my stomach wasn’t picking them up well enough. They check my cervix first, and we were all surprised to find I was fully dilated. They decide to let me labor down a bit to let my body rest.

At 10 am they come back and tel me they want me to try and push and ask if I’m ready. I’m so ready to see my baby at this point that I agreed. After pushing for 1 hour and 37 minutes, Oliver Ryan was born 💕

10/30 at 11:37 am

20.5 inches and 8 lbs