Sunday May 7
At 6:30am Ana’s handy rings and we know, it is the hospital. They had told us that they will call us between 6am and 10am to tell us when or if to come today. They ask us to be there between 7:30am and 8:00am. We arrived shortly before 8am after Ana had some breakfast and I had made some dough for pancakes. I would want to go back to make pancakes while Ana will go through the initial phase of the induction procedure.
We are in room 4 (LDR 4) and our nurse is Carol who grew up in Arlington close to Turkey Hill not far from our house. I am thinking that it will take order of 12 hours… so no rush.
So, I went home after dropping off Ana and take care of the home duty, including 4 soccer matches (with the help of Liz, Val and Katie) and once Ivan is back we prepare for the night and make sure all is ready for the kids to take care of the morning routine. Ivan would stay home with Knox if I could not make it back. Finally when all is said and done it is shortly after 9pm when I make my way back to the hospital. With zero traffic I arrive quickly only to find all but the emergency exit closed already. The cervix softening treatment is finished by 10pm and the doctor finds no effect. Ana and I are both somewhat disappointed and it becomes pretty clear that it is likely for nothing to happen in the night to Monday. I grab the little bed they provided me and sleep happily through the night with the usual half wake periods when the nurses come in and check. Ana is progressing very slowely if at all.
Monday May 8
In the morning around 6am we decide that I should go and get all kids to school. In case our baby would start to make an appearence I would pull Gisele out of school and let her watch Knox, otherwise I would be watching Knox at home. We switch phones as Ana’s phone does not want to charge with my charger which leads to some funny text messages during the day. And so it went, the day is a standard day. I find the kids very confidently doing their job, a very relaxed and happy Knox. I do some cleanup at home, take a shower with Knox and go shopping for milk, yogurt, maple syrup, bread, tomatos and some cinamon roles. All the time staying in touch with Ana.
I start to prepare my lecture for tomorrow when it is time to pick up the kids from school. Meanwhile our initial worries the baby would make a quick appearance are turned into more worries as the baby starts to turn into a breech position again. Pitocin is stopped and after considering a Cesarian a short tipping massage puts the baby back to heads down again. A binder is put in place to fix the position. Pitocin is restarted by noon and since then we are on a regular induction cycle. The doctor decides to put a tracker on babies head to monitor the position and avoid for her moving out of head down position. Also the binder will stay in place for the ret of the night.
Meanwhile, I make some sandwich lunch for the kids, feed Knox and get all setup for the next evening and morning. The instructions are of course all the same. Finally at around 3:30pm I have everybody on track, we shoot a last ussy for Ana and I am on my way to Mount Auborn hospital. This time I think there is a good chance that I will head back home with good news before the kids have to go to school, but we know that Ana is slow in reacting to Pitocin.
We order dinner just for me, because Ana cannot eat, around 6pm. Salmon and some good vegetables. Contractions are getting more intense and regular. At around 8pm Ana gets her epidural, and I have to leave the Labor and Delivery Section for about 20mins. Ana’s plot pressure drops a little but with a little booster she is back on track quickly. I call Ivan during the epidural is set and they have everything under control, everybody is fine and they ask how mom is doing and I say fine, likely the girl will come this night. Now we are all set and our little girl can come.
Quick call to the troops at 9pm. Ivi has them under control. Everybody is in bed and Knox is firmly asleep in his bed. A little update for them that Ana is making progress and he will be likely off to school tomorrow. I just lie down now to take a break so that I will be ready for the push. According to the records the push came about 7 hours after the water broke with Knox, which would put us to about 4am for the delivery of our little sweetie. The night passes on with the typical machine beeps we know by now from all other deliveries, the regular compressor noise from the automatic blood pressure measurements. Ana continues to have rather low blood pressures.
Tuesday May 9
At 1:36am the cervix has almost disappeared just a little left on one side, it is getting closer. Ana gets a little nauseous and vomits a bit. This time before delivery 😉 it is different every time. Usually she does it after delivery.
