The Big Day

kemcclure ♦ December 23, 2011 ♦ Leave a Comment

Thursday, I had a doctor appointment to check my status as well as the baby’s, but was told that it could be a while since I had only dilated 1 and it didn’t seem like anything would be happening for a while. The doctor already had on her schedule that two weeks from my due date we would induce. I did not want that to happen, but they wouldn’t let me go past 14 days so that’s what we did.

That night (8-11-2011) Andrew had to observe an exercise his Marines were doing and didn’t get home until late. After being told that it could be a while before baby McClure makes his entrance, I was determined that it would not be two more weeks…especially because I didn’t know if Andrew would be allowed to miss more work after he was given this time off! I drank my raspberry leaf tea and sat on my exercise ball to stretch (again…sorry if this is too much info!).

Friday morning (8-12-2011) at about 10:15am Andrew was on the phone updating his Gunny, now promoted to Tops, on how the Marines did the night before when….my water broke! (I apologize if this is too much information.) I had not felt any real contractions so decided to do a lot of walking. I did not want to spend a ton of time in the hospital walking and being monitored. I knew that if the water broke, they don’t want you to go for too long without delivery to prevent infection and harm to the baby. So around 4 we headed to the hospital since I felt some contractions but also knew we were going on 6 hours without anything…just more water leaking.

I was checked in around 5pm and the shift was getting ready to change so I saw a lot of different people. Since it was now over 7 + hours they said they would wait a little longer before they would start pitocin. They wanted the baby out within 18 hours of my water breaking. I told them no medicine or epidural as I wanted to do natural as much as possible. Well, it was only a few hours into getting the pitocin as they increased it about every 30 minutes. I only was 3 centimeters dilated. Progress was slow and they didn’t want to check me too much because they wanted to prevent infection.

When contractions started getting unbearable for me, they checked me again and I was about 6 centimeters dilated. I requested an epidural. I was told that there was only on anesthesiologist in the entire hospital and the labor and delivery floor was completely full and they were turning people away ( I knew a full moon would do this ) so I may not get seen in time or at all. I prayed and prayed. I wanted to push and was not far enough along. It was all happening fast and slow…it was weird. I know Andrew was worried about me and the baby and was tired. I just wanted to get through this as I didn’t think I could handle the pain anymore. My legs had a shooting pain that hurt so bad! It was maybe 30 minutes and in walked the anesthesiologist! I was so happy and thanked the Lord. As soon as he started – my pain was gone! It was wonderful!!!! I was able to relax and tried to rest a little bit. I don’t know the exact time so I’ll just say it was a couple of hours or less when they said well, in about an hour our shift ends and new people will be coming. At least 10 other babies had been born that night and I was the first and last one there! So I was determined that before 6 am the baby would come out. Around 4:30am I started to push. I didn’t think it was all that difficult. I was just tired. Time went really fast for me, but unfortunately the baby was in distress from the pushing and fast contractions. I had to be put on oxygen and turned in all different directions. The cord was wrapped around his neck. I needed to get him out. I had people all around me and Andrew kept his cool even though he was scared. I couldn’t tell. He was a rock on the outside.

At 5:38, David made his appearance into this world. David Wells McClure was 6lbs 12 oz and 19 inches long. He was healthy and crying. I was so happy.We still hadn’t decided between two choices of middle names so we talked it over a little while after he was born and decided on Wells. Andrew was wonderful. put David’s first diaper on and gave him his first sponge bath and bundled him up so well.