Jenna's Labor and Delivery Story

On Tuesday, September 20th (five days after my due date - doesn't seem like much but felt like forever!), I met Sam at his office and we walked home to have lunch together. After eating lunch we laid on the couch for a quick power nap, and right when his cell phone alarm went off, I felt what I thought might be my water break. Sam was still waking up when I told him, "I think my water broke!" I stood up, and I quickly was SURE it had broken. Luckily I ran to the bath tub in time for no damage to be done :) The contractions started right there, and were consistently 4 minutes apart. We frantically ran around the house, trying to gather stuff up, as I was pretty sure I would have to be induced the following night (I was scheduled to be induced Wed. at 8pm), and realized we were very unprepared for me to go into labor. It was such an adrenaline rush to realize it was finally happening! When we finally had everything ready, we headed to the hospital, me sitting in a plastic garbage bag (with my legs poked through the bottom) so that I wouldn't get anything on the car. The contractions quickly got even closer together, happening about every 3 minutes, and we got stuck in enough Honolulu traffic to make us nervous. When we finally made it to the hospital I was in quite a bit of pain, but they didn't have any rooms available. After about 3 1/2 hours I felt like I was dying. Poor Sam was trying to help, but I didn't want anyone talking to me or touching me - it took all the concentration I had just to catch my breath between contractions. The contractions were coming every 3 minutes and lasting for 2 minutes. So Sam enjoyed watching Titanic while I just tried to breathe. I had wanted an epidural hours earlier, but they still didn't have a room available so I couldn't get one. I was on a bed in a little waiting area where they check you into the hospital, just waiting for a room to open up when someone had to go in for an emergency c-section so I got claim on their labor and delivery room. Once I got the epidural, it took almost an hour and three doses to take the pain away, but once it was gone, I was one happy lady. For the next 2 hours I continued to be dilated to a 4. Around 10:15pm the nurse checked me and was shocked when I was at a 10 and feeling the urge to push. She told my doctor to hurry to the hospital, although we didn't think she would make it in time. Luckily she did, and after 20 minutes of pushing little Jenna arrived, beautiful as ever. Sam and I couldn't take our eyes off of her. We just kept saying over and over again, "She is so perfect! She is so beautiful!" It was an experience I will never forget. I found it so amazing how we could instantly love this little girl so much. We held her and kissed her and cuddled her for the rest of the night, and finally called our families the next morning to tell them the good news.

At Sam's office, just an hour before my water broke.