Monday night, June 21st
Earlier that day I had a terrible headache. So bad that I actually slept on the couch for awhile that evening. It was during a heatwave and I think the heat was making me sick. I woke up at about 10pm and got a phone call from Yisrael. He told me Ariella had been having regular contractions every 10 minutes. They were going to go to sleep and if they got worse over night, they would call me and we'd go to the hospital. In any case, they were supposed to go to the hospital in the morning for monitoring.
I figured that would work out nicely. My headache was better and I would be well rested for a middle of the night phone call. I guess I went to bed about an hour or so later - after making sure my bag was all packed and ready to go.
Went to bed and woke up about every hour or 2 to check my phone!! No missed calls....
Tuesday, June 22 (My Anniversary)
At about 5 something in the morning Yisrael called. Ariella was still having pretty regular contractions, somewhat closer together, and they think her water might have broken the night before. Not a huge gush but a little bit here and there. They knew they had to go in for monitoring anyway so they told me that I should get ready, shower, eat breakfast, and call them when I was ready to go. I did that and called about 45 minutes later. They came by and picked me up. I went downstairs and was SO excited to see them!! Ariella looked great (probably not a good sign for someone in labor......)
It was already fun to be someone on the other side. I was SOOOO totally excited and feeling good after a decent amount of sleep. And ready to get this "party" started. I wasn't even nervous anymore. I was confident the 3 of us would make a good birthing team. Not to mention, June 22nd would be a great day to have their baby. It was Shauli and my anniversary (sorry for deserting you that day, honey. I'll buy you a car to make up for it :) ). The crazy thing about that was that our daughter, Kayla, was born on Ariella and Yisrael's wedding day!!!! We thought it would be pretty cool. And seeing as it was only 8am, we were certain it would happen.......
And the "real" story begins...............
We arrived at the hospital (after getting stuck in baaaad traffic) at 8am and were sent to the Labor and Delivery Admittance. It was REALLY quiet and we felt that was a good time. Not a busy day.
They got Ariella hooked onto a monitor and we sat around a bit. It was fun watching the contractions on the machine and hoping each one would get stronger and closer together than the one before. They were still about 5 minutes apart and she had some stronger ones but they weren't changing a whole lot. Apparently the nurses weren't satisfied because they came in and gave Ariella something sweet to drink to get the baby moving around more. They made her lay on her side with her hand up over her head. It was a really awkward and uncomfortable position. People would come in and out but no one really told us what was going on....
The doctor finally came and I guess was satisfied enough with the monitor that he was ready to check her. He also wanted to check and make sure her water had, in fact, broken. We went to another room where he looked at the baby on the ultrasound - aww......we'll meet you soon baby!!! Then he checked Ariella and she was about 1 cm dilated, same as what she was at the doctor the day before. Oh well.....
He didn't think she was leaking amniotic fluid but when he did the test, the stick turned orange (blue?) and he said yep, that's amniotic fluid all right! And you are NOT leaving here without a baby.....
HOORAY! They weren't going to send us home only to come back hours later. Those were good words to hear.
He asked a bunch of questions and based on the fact that her water broke the night before, he was either going to do some tests and based on those results put her on antibiotics or he was just going to go ahead and put her on antibiotics. Then based on how things were going, he may induce her using a pill (a little more natural than Pitocin). There was some confusion based on the translation but we all felt we more or less knew what was going on......
Ariella was going to get some blood drawn for the tests and Yisrael and I were starving!! We decided to go grab something to eat. We left the hospital and went to an Angel's bakery branch. We got toasts and a few rugelach. Brought some back for Ariella too. We came back to the hospital but they are REALLY strict about food and didn't want to let us back in.
At that point, Yisrael decided to go to work for half an hour. He knew he needed to go at some point that day and we figured it was only going to get busier. So now was the best time. He went to get his car and I snuck my food into the hospital. Of course I didn't eat it for another half hour or so because I was inside. But when they were doing something else to Ariella, I went out to grab a bite. After a little bit, she joined me outside.
They wanted to give her a dose of antibiotics but they had to wait until a room in the maternity ward opened up. As soon as that happened, they would call us and we could get settled. We hung out outside for a bit. Then back inside to the women's waiting area. We waited and waited and waited. The A/C was not working and we were shmoiling!!!
Ariella mentioned that this was completely not how she pictured the day going!! In her mind, Delivery Day involved a frantic phone call to me in the middle of the night, a rush to the hospital, and lots of stuff and pain going on once we got here. In reality, we were sitting around.....waiting........facing random contractions......talking......hanging out...... eating.......
This was strangely reminiscent to my labor with Jonah. Except we were hanging out in a nice birthing room and eating bagels that my friend Jocey brought!!
We went back into the admitting room and asked if we could wait there, due to the fact that the A/C was broken. They said no so we said we were going to sit in a nearby hallway. They didn't have any news on a room for Ariella so they told us to come back in 15 minutes.
We sat in the slightly more air conditioned hallway and debated what to do. Should Ariella walk around to try to get things moving? At that point, it seemed like the contractions were really tapering off. She was definitely stressed and there is no way that was good for labor. She wanted to be settled in a room and here we were, totally in limbo and not knowing when and where we were headed. It was really frustrating.
Yisrael came back and we went to check in about the room. This time they said 5 more minutes and we should wait outside. So we sat in the separate waiting areas (and took a picture) and after about 5-10 minute, they came to get us. YAY! We figured we were finally making it to Labor and Delivery so we could get things started......
And break time................ come back soon for Part 3!!
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