I'll be a mom today...

It was Tuesday. I woke up knowing that I would be a mom before the day was over. I had to be at the hospital by 6:00am. I had arranged for my father to take me in and my husband would stay at home with the dogs until I called him when I was settled in my room. I just really didn't want them to be alone all day so I wanted him home with them as long as possible.

I got up and showered. I had heard that being induced is really painful so I was just hoping that my water would break and I would start having contractions on my own. But nothing happened. My dad picked me up at about 5:30am and we drove to the hospital. I was pretty calm though my heart was beating really fast. The car ride was a little awkward. Just a lot of small talk. I was trying not to think about the pain that I was going to be in shortly.

We arrived at the hospital and I checked in at the desk. I was shown to the delivery room which I had seen before when we toured the hospital. They had me change into a gown, took some blood and an IV was started. By this time I was not even worried about the needles. I started to feel extremely nauseous and thought I was going to be sick. I had been laying on my back so they had me turn to my side and I felt better. I had monitors strapped around my belly, just like my non-stress test monitors. One was to track the fetal heart-rate and one was to track my contractions. It showed that I was having contractions but I couldn't feel them at all. Once I was settled into the bed, they let my dad in and we just sat there. We pretended to watch a news program on TV. I didn't really want to talk. He held my hand.

Every few minutes a nurse would come in and do something - check the monitors, take my blood pressure, move things around. And every time they came in, they asked what my pain level was. There was a chart of faces, smiley faces to frowing faces, numbered one through ten. One being no pain with a very smiley face and ten being the most pain with a very frowny face. I kept telling them that I was at a zero unless you counted my hand where an IV was sticking out. I thought that I would be able to go through this without an epidural because I was obviously handling this better than any woman in the history of the world. I couldn't believe that I was having contractions every 4 to 5 minutes and didn't even feel them.

They started the pitocin and I was sure that any moment I would be in excrutiating pain. But I wasn't. And I waited.

I had told my husband to get to the hospital around 8am. That was when they would break my water. But he showed up around 6:30am. He wanted to be with me. My mother showed up around the same time and we all just sat in the room and waited.

The doctor checked me and I was only 2cm dilated. I had been 2cm dilated for a couple of weeks so I was nervous that the labor wouldn't progress. So I waited.

My mother and father went to get something to eat and my husband and I sat together. I didn't leave the bed. Everyone kept asking me if I wanted ice chips but I didn't want them and I didn't understand why women eat them. Maybe I would want them later...