Many of you knew I was anxious to no longer be pregnant; I tried every wise-tale I could think of to start labor - castor oil, spicy foods, jumping on the trampoline, walks, stair-stepping... and yet nothing. The castor oil did send me to the hospital with strong contractions that were 2-3 min apart for an hour but shortly after getting there they faded and I had not progressed.
39 weeks rolled around and I had my membranes swept, which is apparently sets a lot of women into labor within 24 hours. My midwife was surprised that I even made it to 39 weeks with how quickly I had already progressed. So that was Monday and I did not want to risk going another week baby-less so I scheduled an induction for Wednesday just in case the membrane sweep failed. Good thing I did! Tuesday night we dropped Morgan off at David's brother's to spend the night since we had to be at the hospital at 7:00am. On the way home David and I realized we, for the first time in 19 months, could go out and do something without having to worry about being back to relieve a babysitter. So we went to the 10:00 showing of What to Expect When You're Expecting. It was sooooo funny and even though it meant we didn't get to bed til 1:00 I was glad we did it. 6:00am rolled around and we made our way to the hospital, first stopping at Macey's to get donuts for the nurses.
Morgan was born in room 111 and I thought it would be really cool to have Eli in the same room so I intended on asking for it. While being checked in I noticed that someone was already assigned to that room but the name was covered. I requested it anyway and it turns out I was the one assigned to it!! So after settling in the room in walked my nurse to start my IV and of all the nurses that it could have been I immediately recognized her as the same nurse that helped deliver Morgan! Of course I mentioned that to her and she said she recognized me too so we spent the rest of the time joking with her as she proceeded to poke me 4 different times - 3 failed attempts - to get my IV going.
So 8:00 the Pitocin finally started, 8:30 I felt the beginnings of contractions, 8:45 I got the epidural (I had already planned on that - I figured why not... I liked it last time), I was still at a 4 and 70% at this point but at 11:10 the nurse checked me again and I was now at 5 cm and 80%. She said she would consider my labor started at this point because it was the first indication of change. 11:30 I felt pressure and recognized it from when I had Morgan so I called the nurse back in and sure enough at 11:40 I was fully dilated and fully effaced. Since things went so quickly with Morgan the nurse had prepped everything early so when the time came she just brought it all in. Unfortunately, despite being all ready and feeling the need to push I had to wait for the respiratory specialist to come (apparently one is to be in attendance for every delivery in case the baby is not breathing well). My midwife told me to give a small push to see how long the pushing process would take but almost immediately after I started to push she told me to stop because she could tell it was going to go fast and the respiratory guy still wasn't there. After another couple of minutes of waiting and all of us laughing and cracking jokes my midwife told me to go ahead and start pushing and the guy should be there soon. Within seconds Eli was out. I could tell looking at my midwife's face that she did not expect it to be so fast and she even commented that if we had waited long enough he probably would just have slid out on his own he was so ready.
At 11:59:44 Eli Anderson Holladay was born. Labor was, I guess, technically only 45 minutes. On another note we were told that we were the cutest couple of the day! Apparently we were just a lot of fun and the nurses really liked us and our laid-back attitude. Eli is a great baby! He isn't very fussy and even when he does get upset it is usually quickly remedied. Morgan is great with him and it is cute to see her try to love him. Having 2 kids is certainly an adjustment but I think we are managing :)
