I really am kind of surprised that I made it to my final Dr. appointment on Monday, June 3rd. Matt went with me to the Shaw Center bright and early that morning. He sat with me while I had my non-stress test. It ended up lasting forever, because Molly Caroline was not reactive. Dr. McCollum actually came in the little NST room to check the monitor herself and try to figure out how to get a reactive strip. I don't think I ended up having my appointment until an hour or so later than scheduled. When I went in to see her, she checked me and I hadn't really made any more progress except that I was almost completely effaced. She also stripped my membranes which hurt a good bit. She told me that she was going to send me over to the hospital that night to start the induction process and she would come in at 7am and break my water. Then she'd be the one on call at the hospital for the next 24 hours. She also said if I went into labor in the middle of the night to just call her on her cell and she would come over and deliver MC anyway. I love her! Matt and I just sat in excitement while she called the hospital to make sure they knew to get my room ready and what to do. She also told them that they were supposed to call her if I went into labor on my own sooner! Eeek!!!
Matt and I ran few errands and picked up lunch from Chick fil a. Then we came home and Matt loaded our bags into my Tahoe. My parents were hanging out at the house, so we spent the afternoon with them. Around 3:45, Matt and I said goodbye to Blakely and told her that we would bring her new sister home in a few days and headed to Archbold. It was a typical summer afternoon. Our drive there was pretty. We passed blue hydrangeas blooming and red, white, and blue bunting draped on the porches of old houses downtown. We drove down Broad Street and under the moss and oaks. We were eagerly anticipating Molly Caroline's birthday and everything around us seemed beautiful and perfect for her arrival!
We know that the Lord planned everything perfectly for this time. We arrived at the hospital to see a member of our church that took us to check in. I taught one of her sons years ago and she was just so kind, excited, and encouraging. It put us at ease. I got to see some of the sweet nurses that helped me all of the times that I was sent over to L and D for a blood pressure check or NST. They were excited that we were actually there to stay! Apparently we were in the middle of a tropical storm while we were there and the rain just poured down, so it was actually really cozy.
Around 5:30 I was hooked up to all the monitors and they inserted a foley catheter into my cervix to help with dilation. It is basically a little ball/balloon like thing that they fill up with air. The procedure didn't hurt, but shortly after I started shaking uncontrollably...which is so not like me. I felt soooo sick. I kept telling the nurse and midwife that I didn't feel right...that I wasn't sure if i had to use the bathroom or throw up. It ended up getting worse and I was shaking so hard that Matt freaked out and thought I was having a seizure. This was about the time of shift change and we now know that about 7 people came in then in labor so there were no nurses to be found. Matt finally found someone and told them that he wanted them to treat our situation with urgency..haha! The funny thing is that I begged him not find a nurse. I usually handle pain well, and I did not want them coming in there and seeing me hurt so bad. Thankfully, Jessica, a nurse that is our age and is hiarious had just come in and was happy to see us too. She would always give Matt free apple juice when we would come in for NST's and she is just really fun. She got the midwife to come check me and it turned out that my body was kind of in shock because that catheter dilated my cervix from a 1 to a 4 in a matter of minutes so I had started having contractions. But not the kind of slow, far apart, mild contractions that you think you would start off having. (You see I had never even had a Braxton Hicks contraction...but i would later come to find out that contractions are awful...and I ended up having ones that were a lot worse.) I guess the catheter was putting pressure on my cervix during every contraction so that is why they were so bad. Finally, they eased off and we were sent over to the Mother/Baby side of the Labor and Delivery floor to sleep for the night. They told me that while I was asleep the catheter might just fall out if my cervix was dilated enough. Well, while I was standing in the waiting room waiting on my Dad and Matt to bring up our luggage I felt the weirdest sensation and told my mom that I felt like the catheter was about to fall out. And then it did. Yep...standing in the waiting room. Thankfully they had the end of it taped to my leg so this huge ball just hung down near the floor. Y'all! So embarassing! I had to walk back to L and D with it like that and my sweet nurse Jessica untaped it. Well at least it was out and I wasn't in pain anymore. There was a little chance that I could go into labor so we were monitored every 2 hours that night. My mom asked one of the nurses what Dr was on call that night just in case. She responded with, "Nicole has special orders. She has her own personal doctor. We are instructed to call Dr. McCollum who is not on call if she goes into labor. She's a princess." This made us laugh. I so don't feel like I'm a princess!
When we were walking to our room we saw another nurse named Jessica....the one that taught our birthing class back in March. The amazing one that we so wanted turned out to be our nurse for the night. She only works 2 nights a week so it was so special that she was there then. She is a Moms on Call consultant, and lactation specialist, and lives in our neighborhood (she's actually helped us a lot since MC was born...more on that later). We didn't really know her well, but knew how awesome she is. She remembered us and asked if I was a Hand in Hand teacher. She said a mutual friend had told her to look out for me. :) She went over what we needed to bring into the delivery room and answered all of the many questions that we had...including if I could wash my hair in the morning. Haha! I'm laughing at how I pictured my labor would be and how it ended up being. She said I had until midnight to eat or drink anything and that she could give me an ambien to help me get some rest for the biggest day of my life. My parents made baked ziti and meatballs for Matt and I, so we ate that around 10pm. Then I drank tons of water. I opted not to get the ambien. I felt really tired and also felt like I didn't want to be groggy in the morning. I mean, I had to wake up at 5:30 to wash my hair! :) I didn't get a lot of sleep, and poor Matt was so uncomfortable in the recliner. I spent a lot of time praying about my sweet baby and just anticipating what everything would be like in the morning. I was also having contractions...but mild ones. They weren't bad at all.
It was sweet night and a really good memory of our last night before our lives were forever changed...
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