The Story of Payton's Birth

I woke up to go to my regular scheduled doctor's appointment at 7:45 Monday morning. When I woke up I was having some contractions; however, I thought they were pretty normal since I seemed to have contractions whenever I would wake up in the mornings. I went to the doctor and I was 2 cm and 75% efaced. The doctor told us to go the hospital Tuesday morning to be induced.

I left the doctor's office and started to have contractions again. I was on the phone to my legal assistant and the contractions started to take my breath away. I was about a third of the way to work and decided I needed to go home. I arrived home at 9:00 a.m. and woke Derek up from a peaceful sleep. I told him he needed to get up and get ready because we may be heading to the hospital. He took a shower and took Daisy to daycare to be boarded. I laid in bed and started timing my contractions. They were anywhere from 7 to 3 minutes apart and lasting about 2 minutes. As soon as Derek got back I told him to load the bags because we needed to leave. We arrived at the hospital at 11:00 a.m. and my contractions were 3 minutes apart and lasting 2 minutes. I was also 70% efaced and 3 cm.

They took us to the labor room at around 12:30 p.m. and Collen the labor nurse checked me again. I was now 4 cm and 50% efaced. The contractions were painful, but managable. The doctor came in and broke my water at 1:00 p.m. That is when the real fun begin. I was in so much pain I was crying and begging for drugs. I was given the epidural at 1:30 p.m. and tried to rest for awhile. There were a couple of times when Collen was concerned about Payton because I was having such strong and long contractions that Payton's heartrate would drop. She would roll my over to the other side and Payton would approve.

At about 3:00 she checked my again andI was 6 cm and completely efaced. The pain medication also started to wear off so more drugs were ordered. At around 4:15 I was 9 cm and completely efaced and Collen called to make sure my doctor was actually in the building. At 4:30 I started pushing and Payton arrived at 4:47 p.m.

I have to admit labor was not that bad with the help of drugs. I am still amazed at how fast everything happened.