Baby #3's Dramatic Arrival

Holding her baby sister for the first time!

I had expected our third daughter's arrival a good week before she made her appearance. We had packed our bags, placed them in the car, and even sent our two girls to Grandma's, so sure was I that the baby would arrive a week earlier.

I had been woken up at 4 am by mildly tender contractions, and started timing them. They were 5 minutes apart! While I waited for my husband to return from dropping the girls off at Grandma's, much to my surprise, I fell asleep. 

As the contractions were not tender enough to keep me awake, we decided to delay the trip to the hospital. The following day, we picked the girls up from Grandma's as the contractions had not progressed.

This went on for the entire week leading up to the baby's arrival.  My contractions occurred every 5 to 20 minutes, but they were not tender. Thankfully, my husband had a week of vacation scheduled that same week, so he was able to help out with the girls.

On Friday August 9, I had a doctor's appointment. On exam, she declared my cervix to be 4 cm open, and 50% effaced. After performing a sweep of my membranes, she predicted that the baby would arrive in the next 24 hours.

Within 30 minutes of leaving the doctor's office, my contractions became mildly painful, and more frequent, occurring every 5 to 15 minutes. Things progressed rather slowly during the day. But finally at around 18h, I declared myself ready to go to the hospital. So we packed our girls into the car, and my husband dropped me off at the hospital on his way to Grandma's.

I arrived at the case room around 18:20h. After mentioning the frequency of my contractions, and that this was my third pregnancy, I was asked to wait in the waiting room! "I won't be sitting," I explained to the nurse that asked me to wait, "I will be walking back and forth as it it too painful to sit."

15 minutes later, I was summoned to a reclining chair where two monitors were attached just over my uterus. One to monitor the frequency and intensity of the contractions, and the other to measure the baby's heart rate.

After approximately 1 hour on the monitor, at 19:45, my cervix was examined by a nurse. I was told I was now 5 cm dilated and 80% effaced, and that "I guess we will admit you". The nurse then paged my doctor to let her know that I was in the hospital, but that "she could take her time". By this point, my husband had dropped the girls off at Grandma's and wanted to know if he could get a quick bite to eat on the way back to the hospital. I replied that I was only 5 cm, and probably we had a few hours before baby's arrival.

The same nurse then escorted me to a delivery room, and asked me to get changed. Little did she know that 30 minutes and a few contractions later, our baby would arrive!

She left the room while I got changed, but quickly returned when she heard me screaming. She then summoned the resident, medical student, and attending doctor as she now suspected that things would progress quickly. She called my own doctor back to let her know that she should not take her time, and I texted one word to my husband: "Hurry!"

The baby arrived at 20:16, one minute before my obstetrician arrived, and 3 minutes before my husband entered the room. I had a particularly painful contraction, I grabbed the attending doctor next to me and screamed. "Something's coming out" I kept screaming, over and over again, although I was not pushing. In fact I was trying to hold "it" in...but to no avail. 30 seconds later, our third daughter made her sudden appearance. 

My husband arrived on time for the delivery of the placenta. The medical student had cut the cord, and the senior resident on call had expertly delivered the baby. So that's what it's like to deliver a baby without an epidural, I thought to myself!

My husband and I were disappointed that he had missed the baby's delivery. Had the initial cervical exam by the nurse been incorrect? Or had I simply progressed very, very quickly? I suspect it was a little of both, but in the end we could not be happier with the arrival of our lovely, healthy third daughter!