Last Minute Labor

I am not a naturally patient person. Looking back on various experiences from my life, I know that God is constantly trying to teach me to trust in His timing rather than my own. Unfortunately, I'm a rather hard-headed person and am having difficulty learning this lesson. Fortunately for me, in this case, God allowed me to have my own way despite my stubborn refusal to learn.

To give a little bit of history, when I was pregnant with Jaden, I developed gestational diabetes. Although I had a minor case that was easily controlled through diet, I was still at higher risk of having a stillbirth past 41 weeks gestation. Since Jaden decided he did not want to be born early, I was induced five days after his due date. The induction did not go well and ended in a c-section.

With my second pregnancy, I developed gestational diabetes again. And, to make matters more complicated, having already had a c-section, an induction would increase my risk of my uterus rupturing during delivery. So, I had to schedule a c-section for 7/29, 8 days past my due date, in case Riley decided to not come on his own. I did not want a repeat c-section, so my prayer all along was that I would go into labor on my own and delivery naturally before having to have the c-section.

After many false starts, I finally went into labor at 2:00 am on 7/28! Talk about waiting until the last possible day! However, due to my previous incidents of false labor, I was reluctant to get my hopes up. My contractions were not getting stronger or closer together, at least not quickly enough to satisfy me, but they weren't going away either. I finally called my doctor's office and talked to the nurse who suggested that I come into the office for a labor check. When I arrived, I had dilated to 4 cm and was having contractions every 7-8 minutes. The doctor was pretty confident that I was in fact in early labor and asked me to come back late in the afternoon for another check.

I went home and tried to occupy myself while waiting for things to progress. Knowing that walking often helps labor, but being unwilling to face the extreme Texas heat outside, I decided to vacuum.


The hours passed slowly, and with the bags in the car, Peter and I returned to my OB's office. By then, my contractions were 5-6 minutes apart, so they sent me to the hospital. Yippee!!

We arrived at the hospital at about 4:30 that afternoon and got all checked in. I was fortunate that the only wireless fetal monitor in the labor and delivery department was available. Because of the risks associated with a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean), I knew I would have to be hooked to the monitor at all times, but I really wanted the flexibility of being out of bed, walking around, and sitting on the ball, etc. during labor. So far, so good.

Later that evening, Nanna and Grandad brought Jaden by the hospital for a visit. I'd never left Jaden over night before, so this visit was as much for my sake as for his. I wanted him to see where Mama was, even if he really didn't understand what was going on. Here he is sitting in my hospital bed eating his dinner.

After he ate, Jaden explored the room a bit and discovered the air conditioning intake vent. For some reason, these fascinate him.


When it was time for Jaden to get home and go to bed, I was left to continue laboring. Unfortunately, it was about the same time when the nurse came in and told me that I needed to get back in bed because they had started to notice some heart rate issues with the baby. I had had similar issues with Jaden, so I knew my vision of spending my labor up and about was over.

After 18 hours of labor, things were about to get a little more tense from here on out. Stay tuned for more. . .