Elijah’s Birth Story: Part 1

I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions for weeks, and March 31^st didn’t seem any different. It was a week past the day John and I believed was my due date and 3 days after the doctor’s calculated due date. I was really motivated to finally get our little guy here, so I figured that moving my hips from side to side while blow-drying my hair wouldn’t hurt. Later, while watching TV, I decided to sit on my exercise ball and bounce up and down. Around 10:30, I called John to say that I felt some contractions but I thought they were still Braxton Hicks. They didn’t feel any different. The only thing that I noticed that was any different is that I had a little backache.

John asked if I wanted him to come home, but I said no. I didn’t want to be the girl who kept calling false alarms on labor. Around 11:40, I decided that it might be nice to have John at home if he could get home, so I called his office, but he was two steps ahead of me. I was told he’d left because he wanted to go home and take care of his wife. I’m glad he knew I needed taking care of before I did!

He got home around noon, and I’d just sat down to eat lunch and watch the most recent episode of The Biggest Loser. He joined me, and every couple minutes, I’d have to close my eyes and be in a little pain. I don’t know why, but I hadn’t noticed that the pain was getting worse. It was weird, though, because the contractions were always about 2-3 minutes apart, so I still thought it was false labor.

Around 1, John asked if I thought we should go to my appointment early. (I had an appointment scheduled for 2 with my doctor.) I said no, because we still needed to put some stuff in our hospital bags just in case and by the time we took care of that and got to the doctor’s office, it would be near 2. I started timing the contractions, and sure enough, they were every 2-3 minutes. Still, I didn’t think it was the real deal.

I was told that I would just know when I was in labor. Well…not me! I got to the doctor’s office, and as usual, they hooked me up to the CTG machine (non stress test), which measures the baby’s heart rate as well as uterine contractions. We could see that every 2-2.5 minutes, I was having a contraction. They were definitely getting stronger, but again, I didn’t realize it. I was having to focus to get through them. After my NST was over, the doctor came in to see me immediately. He did a quick pelvic exam and told me I was about 2-3 cm dilated and asked if I had brought my things for the hospital.