So, my husband called L&D and we rushed to the hospital. There they had to make sure that it was amniotic fluid, although I am not sure what else it could have been considering that my clothes were soaking wet and I had to put a towel down in the car. The nurse said something about some people confusing semen with amniotic fluid, which certainly wasn't an option in my case. However, they still had to check, which turned out to be more of an ordeal. Apparently, when you put amniotic fluid on a slide and it dries, it creates this "ferned" or "snowflake" pattern. That did not happen with me. They checked my cervix and I wasn't dilated, which really would've meant a trip back home, except that my membranes had ruptured. Normally, they still would've sent me home because they couldn't determine that it was actually amniotic fluid, but they said that my story was convincing...WTF?
I am not sure what time it was when I actually got admitted, and honestly the next few hours are pretty hazy. I know that I wasn't having any contractions, so they started me on pitocin. After the pitocin had been administered they would come in and check me every few hours to see if I had dilated any. Since this was a military hospital, I pretty much had every doctor in the world checking my cervix, which is always a wonderful experience.
Although the drugs they gave me weren't helping with the ripening of my cervix, they were helping with the progression of contractions. At some point on the afternoon of August 6th, I was able to get my epidural. The whole process of getting the epidural wasn't that bad except that it was just really freaking hard to move into position. The actual injection didn't hurt at all and the relief afterwards was great.
The head ob doctor came in at some point and said that they were going to give me until a certain time to dilate and if I hadn't made any progress by then, I would have to go in for a C-section. The longer you go after your membranes rupture, the more likely you are to introduce infection into the womb and to the baby. So, sometime around 8:00 or 8:30 pm on August 6th, they checked my cervix one las time to see that I was only at 3 cm/75% effaced. So they called the head ob doctor at home to come back and operate on me.
Once the decision to do a C-section is made, it doesn't take long before you are in the OR and they are cutting on you. You are obviously awake while all of this is going on (well in most cases) and very aware of what is going on. You feel the pressure of being cut on, but it doesn't hurt. I felt the pressure of the doctor pressing down on my upper abdomen to squeeze the baby out and then I heard the baby crying. My husband runs over to the warming table and then back to me to tell me that the baby is beautiful.
The CRNA is meanwhile giving me some concotion of drugs that throws me for a loop and I am vaguely aware of being sewn up. I think they give you the drugs at that point because the whole closing up process is much more rough than the everything leading up to that point. While they are closing up, I get to see the baby for only a second and I don't even get to hold him. It will be several hours (or so it seems) before I am actually able to do that.
So, little Bradley was born at 9:39 p.m. on August 6th (my sister's birthday). He weighed 7 pounds, 13 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. He scored a 9/9 on the APGAR, so he truly was just about perfect.
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