Cody Joseph Hegreness is Born

On October 22, 2015, Cody Joseph Hegreness was born. But maybe I should back up.
Cody was technically due sometime between the 10th and the 12th. But he was super cozy in there, and had no plans to leave as far as we could tell. Seriously. I was dilated to 1cm and still had a thick cervix for an entire month. I had about 3 Braxton-Hicks contractions a day, and was pretty much entirely too comfortable. Being 41 weeks pregnant felt very much like being 37 weeks pregnant. Except everyone was going out of their minds. :-)
Paul's family has a history of delivering early, so they were like "What on earth is taking so long?" My mom was here to help me and got here on the 10th and was running out of things to clean. Work kept asking me when my last day was. And really.....how long was he really planning on staying there? My doctor really didn't want me to go past 42 weeks, as meconium and stillbirth risk goes up quite a bit after that. My last appointment was Monday the 19th, and there we decided on Thursday the 22nd as our induction date, and she promised to start with cytotec and a cervical balloon so I could try to be as unmedicated as possible. She also promised to not break my water until it was clear I was progressing and basically made me feel as comfortable as possible with getting induced. Except that I was still really nervous about it.
Then she stripped my membranes, which is a VERY HARD THING TO DO AT ONE CENTIMETER. Paul and my mom were kind of traumatized. It hurt, but I was still more impressed than anything. She was committed!
And then nothing really happened until 11pm Tuesday night. And the contractions started to hurt just a little bit more and become a little more regular. Also, I had a little bleeding that made me think this is it. I did sleep most of the night, so I'm not sure how the contractions were then. When I woke up, they were still mild enough that Paul went to work- I told him he was ok to go, even though he moved up his inspection from 1 o'clock to 8am. And it's lucky he did. Around noon, my mom and I went on a walk around the neighborhood. About 3 times my contractions were strong enough that I had to stop walking and kind of squat down. We decided to go to the hospital.
So Paul got home and we got already to go. We got there around 2 o'clock. On the way there I had only 2 light contractions and I was like "Oh great, what if this is nothing and they send me home?"
Well, we checked in and they were already expecting me (the schedule was off and they thought I was getting induced that morning anyway). They were expecting to start inducing me; I was expecting nothing so it took awhile to get that straightened out. Luckily, as soon as I got settled in they checked my cervix and I was 3-4 cm dilated and 80% effaced. Yay! This counted as labor so all they did was put in an IV (hep lock/no fluids) and let me walk around. I also ate a popsicle. The last thing I ate was at 11 am; I was pretty worried about not eating food, but I thought they would let me since I was so early. Turns out, they were ok with popsicles, but that was about it.
So my mom and Paul took turns walking me around the floor of the hospital off and on for a few hours. That was actually really nice. It was kind of funny to stop and suddenly hurt so bad in front of everyone, but it was nice to be out of the room. That lasted for a couple hours. I even walked around the floor with my stress balls from Amazon. :-) They were a little helpful but not really too much. Around this time, I threw up for the first time, and got told I was done eating then. I would throw up twice more before I delivered. I had brought my yoga video but that seemed crazy at the time. I think I thought things were going to go faster than they did; I wonder now if it would have helped. I had to be monitored for 15 minutes out of every hour, and Cody was such a good baby. He literally never moved off the monitor once, even as I moved around. The monitor itself slid off him once, but he was super cooperative. I sat in the tub for a little bit and that was nice. I did have some bleeding during all these contractions, but that made us realize my cervix was actually dilating. I was at 5cm at about 5 o'clock. Sometime after that it started to get really intense; I actually don't remember much between 5 and 8. I did ask for a shot of IV pain medicine, which they gave me. It was called Fentanyl, and really it didn't help at all with the pain, but it did make me kind of high and exhausted. I wanted to sleep so bad, but I couldn't lay down or sleep during the contractions because they hurt too bad. 8 to 11:30 were my hardest hours. The pain started to get excruciating and I was hanging off of Paul or my mom and kind of dancing back and forth on my feet during each contraction. The contractions were coming 2 minutes apart and it really seemed like it would never end. Sometimes I felt like I could do it for one hour, but not two, and when it ended up being 3 I was just losing it. There were times when I was just shaking, which would have made me nervous, but another friend who had just delivered had the same thing happen to her, so I was less worried. The two things that helped the most, besides being held up for my contractions were my mom saying during pretty much every contraction, "breathe, catch your breath, you're so brave, you're so tough, you can do this" and Paul wiping my face and neck and back with a cold handkerchief in between each one. Both my mom and Paul said the room was cold but I was literally sweating with each contraction. Brea got there around this time and came in and out a few times during that time. Mary Alice was also there off and on. Finally at 11:15, we had Dr. Martin come check me. I was 9cm dilated and 95% effaced. And my water still hadn't broken. So she broke it. It was a pretty mellow stream of fluid; she said most of it was behind the baby. And then she left the room for me to finish up. Three crazy contractions later where I basically starting squatting for each one, I felt ready to push. She came back in, and yes, I was. They set up the bed to start delivery. I pushed exactly twice (through 2 contractions) when his heart rate dropped to 90. She told me I had to push with everything I had and that they baby had to come out now. It is a crazy feeling to have your body want to push and your mind telling you not to because you know that logically a baby should not be coming out of you! But I did push so hard. He came close, but did not come out, so she got out the vacuum, and on the next contraction with the next 2 pushes he was born, at 12:06 am. Turns out the cord was wrapped twice around his neck, which is why his heart rate dropped. It was good that she hadn't broken my water earlier, or he might not have done so well during the rest of labor. Cody was 7lb 5 oz, bigger than anyone had expected, but oh my gosh still so tiny. He was alert right away and nursed a little bit. I was still super shaky, and then Dr. Martin told me I had a retained placenta. I asked her at what point we start to worry about that. She said 30 minutes. It had been 25. Eventually the placenta came out, but she still had to reach inside me 4 times to basically scrape out my uterus and get. It was very uncomfortable, but still not as bad as some of those last contractions. Finally, at 1am, everything was cleaned and put back together, Paul's family came in to see him. They were so excited. Ralph could not believe how little he was. It was so great to have them there. Brea had been in the room for the delivery and took awesome pictures, which was priceless and so great. Eventually, they loaded us up and took us to the postpartum floor. I was shaking so bad, but as soon as they put Cody in my arms, I stopped. Our nurse when we got there was Jill Champion, who was a CNA I used to work with at Osborn hospital. She is my Facebook friend, and was so excited to see us. Cody had a good night. He slept a little in his bassinet, and then his temperature was a little cold (97 degrees) so they had him lay on my chest where we both fell asleep. It was so crazy to feel his tiny little body and know that he was mine forever. Paul was so sweet and slept near me on the chair. We were both exhausted and fell right asleep. And that it the story of how Cody was born.