Joshua Pierce Crocker, who was due to arrive on September 4, made his debut 3 weeks early on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 6:18 a.m. He weighed 6 lb, 12 oz and was 19-1/2 inches long.
I was awakened in the early morning hours of Tuesday, August 12 with mild cramping. I figured it was either false labor or early labor and definitely wasn’t painful enough to keep me from going to work, especially since the woman I was training to fill my position while I was away had only started training on Monday! I spent the morning dealing with cramp like pains which subsided by the afternoon. I also felt like I was “leaking”. When the leaking sensation didn’t subside, but the cramping did, I decided to call the doctor who said I should come in to check to see if it was amniotic fluid.
So, I went to the doctor. She ran three different tests and when all three were positive for amniotic fluid, I was told that I would need to go to the hospital that night. Apparently, my water had broken and due to the risk of infection, the baby would need to be delivered in the next 24-48 hours.
I was upset by this news since I wasn’t actually in labor. I went home, called Brian, and started putting together the stuff I would need at the hospital. Brian arrived home from work and we went out to get some food and some things (like diapers) that we didn’t have.
We arrived at the hospital at around 7:45 p.m. and were checked in by the doctor. We were told that I would have Cervidil, which is an insert used to “ripen” the cervix. The Cervidil would stay in for 12 hours at which point the doctor would then start us on Pitocin, a labor inducing drug.
My ideal labor included as few interventions as possible, so learning that I would have to be induced was quite upsetting. The Cervidil was inserted at around 8:30 p.m. and I was told to try to get as much rest as possible that night since tomorrow would be a big day. I started having contractions around 10:00 p.m. but I was able to talk through them. They then started getting worse – so much so that I wasn’t able to rest anymore and had to walk around and breathe through the contractions. By 3:00 a.m., I was definitely in active labor! By 4:30, I decided that I could no longer do it without some help and asked for Fentanyl, which is a narcotic analgesic used to “take the edge off”. I was given the Fentanyl around 5:00 a.m. at which point the nurse checked me and I was 6 cm dilated. At around 5:40, after some intense contractions and feeling a lot of pressure, I was checked again and I was fully dilated.
Since no one expected this, the doctor wasn’t around and had to be called. I had to resist pushing and do some hee-hee breathing for about 20 minutes until she arrived. I started pushing at about 6:00 a.m and Joshua was born 18 minutes later.
He was immediately put on my chest and I was able to start breastfeeding. He was left there for over an hour at which point the nurses weighed him and gave him a bath. He was checked out and everything was working as it should.
We stayed that night at the hospital and came home on Thursday afternoon.
So, even though he was three weeks early and I was initially going to have to be induced, it couldn’t have turned out more perfectly!
I was awakened in the early morning hours of Tuesday, August 12 with mild cramping. I figured it was either false labor or early labor and definitely wasn’t painful enough to keep me from going to work, especially since the woman I was training to fill my position while I was away had only started training on Monday! I spent the morning dealing with cramp like pains which subsided by the afternoon. I also felt like I was “leaking”. When the leaking sensation didn’t subside, but the cramping did, I decided to call the doctor who said I should come in to check to see if it was amniotic fluid.
So, I went to the doctor. She ran three different tests and when all three were positive for amniotic fluid, I was told that I would need to go to the hospital that night. Apparently, my water had broken and due to the risk of infection, the baby would need to be delivered in the next 24-48 hours.
I was upset by this news since I wasn’t actually in labor. I went home, called Brian, and started putting together the stuff I would need at the hospital. Brian arrived home from work and we went out to get some food and some things (like diapers) that we didn’t have.
We arrived at the hospital at around 7:45 p.m. and were checked in by the doctor. We were told that I would have Cervidil, which is an insert used to “ripen” the cervix. The Cervidil would stay in for 12 hours at which point the doctor would then start us on Pitocin, a labor inducing drug.
My ideal labor included as few interventions as possible, so learning that I would have to be induced was quite upsetting. The Cervidil was inserted at around 8:30 p.m. and I was told to try to get as much rest as possible that night since tomorrow would be a big day. I started having contractions around 10:00 p.m. but I was able to talk through them. They then started getting worse – so much so that I wasn’t able to rest anymore and had to walk around and breathe through the contractions. By 3:00 a.m., I was definitely in active labor! By 4:30, I decided that I could no longer do it without some help and asked for Fentanyl, which is a narcotic analgesic used to “take the edge off”. I was given the Fentanyl around 5:00 a.m. at which point the nurse checked me and I was 6 cm dilated. At around 5:40, after some intense contractions and feeling a lot of pressure, I was checked again and I was fully dilated.
Since no one expected this, the doctor wasn’t around and had to be called. I had to resist pushing and do some hee-hee breathing for about 20 minutes until she arrived. I started pushing at about 6:00 a.m and Joshua was born 18 minutes later.
He was immediately put on my chest and I was able to start breastfeeding. He was left there for over an hour at which point the nurses weighed him and gave him a bath. He was checked out and everything was working as it should.
We stayed that night at the hospital and came home on Thursday afternoon.
So, even though he was three weeks early and I was initially going to have to be induced, it couldn’t have turned out more perfectly!
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