As soon as he walked in, he said, "Ok...so we're gonna have a baby?" I instantly deflated his enthusiasm by telling him that I was "just being monitored" and "didn't Dr. Crawford's nurse tell you?" He said that she only told him that I was over at the hospital.
We decided to hold off calling anyone in case it was false labor and that nothing was actually happening. After 3 hours of "just being monitored", I asked the nurse when I would be going home. She said, "Going home? Dr. Crawford admitted you and you will be staying until the baby is born." Wow! This was it!
My labor went so slowly. I was admitted on Thursday at 4:00pm and was up all night walking the halls every hour trying to get something going. The nicest nurse, Brenda, was working the 3:00pm-11:00pm shift and spent a lot of time in our room with us. She was also 5 months pregnant and so understanding. This was also the time that the Olympics were happening in Atlanta and the women's gymnastics team was competing so she stayed in our room and watched most of it with us. When she left at 11:00pm, she said that she would be working on Friday at 3:00pm again and would come by to meet our baby.
At 7:00am, a nurse came in to check on me. I asked her if there was a chance that I could be sent home because this was all false labor. She said that is was possible, but that it depended on which doctor from my office was on call. She said that one tends to be conservative and the other, more aggressive. I began to panic! I had already called my mom in Michigan and she was driving down to be there for the delivery! About 30 minutes later, Dr. Crawford walked in to check me. He said that I was dialated to 3cm! That was it? All that walking and I was only 3cm? He walked out and the nurse gave me something to put on. She said for me to take it with me to the bathroom and that I should put it on right away. As I was walking over there, I felt this gush between my legs and I looked back at the nurse and said, "Did he just break my water?" She nodded. I said, "He is the aggressive one, isn't he?" She nodded again and smiled.
We were relieved to know that I wasn't going to be sent home and that my mother (who was probably somewhere in Ohio) wasn't going to be disappointed.
David's family, (Linda, Paul and Shayla) drove up from Charlotte (about an hour) and got to the hospital around 8:00am. I had made each of them a hospital survival kit to pass their time. Each gift had a magazine, snacks and a game. They spent some time in the labor/delivery room with us but would take breaks and go out to the waiting room when nurses would come in. David's mom, Linda, and sister, Shayla, would take walks around the hallway with me. Around 11:00am, the contractions would get tough enough that I would have to stop and catch my breath while walking.
I decided that I was done walking and went back to the room to rest. I had now been in the hospital, with minimal amount of sleep, almost 20 hours, and was pretty tired.
From about 1:00pm-3:00pm in the afternoon, the contractions got really strong and since I was so tired, I decided to ask the nurses for something to ease the pain.
Brenda, the nurse from the night before, came to work and saw that I was still in labor and requested to be assigned to my room. She came back in my room and said she couldn't believe that I hadn't delivered yet. She gave me a shot of Demerol. I was so relieved to see her and to know that she would be the nurse to help us deliver our baby. The Demerol made me feel so woozie that I fell asleep for about 45 minutes. I woke up to a really strong contraction and decided that I didn't feel strong enough to try to deliver a baby without hardly any sleep. I also hadn't eaten anything for over 24 hours at this point. I decided to ask for an Epidural.
