The day after my appointment I started to have some show. I didn't think much of it since I had just had an exam. Sean kept saying not to worry, that I was going to go into labor on Friday so he could be with me and the baby over the weekend (work wouldn't give him any time off). We had heard that sex could trigger labor, so on Thursday night that's what we did (uncomfortable as it was LOL). Sure enough, about 3 a.m. on March 24th I started having contractions. I tried to sleep, but I was just too excited. About 5 a.m. I just couldn't stand it any longer, I got out of bed and started walking. I don't think I stopped walking until I got to the hospital LOL. I called my grandmother, who was supposed to come in from Ms to help with Caitlin, and we decided it was time for her to come. After I go off the phone with her I woke Sean and we decided that he should go on to work and that I would call him when it was time to go to the hospital.

After Sean left for work me and Caitlin walked up and down the block waiting for my grandmother to get there and I was trying to get the baby to move down some more. My grandmother got there at around 11 a.m. and we decided to go to lunch and stop by the hospital to see if they would check me. They wouldn't check me without admitting me, and I wasn't ready for that yet, so we went home.

We timed contractions and walked and I squatted during contractions. My contractions never would get regular, but by about 5:30 the average was about 5 minutes apart. When Sean got home he took a shower and grabbed something to eat and then we all left for the hospital (me, Sean, my grandmother, and Caitlin).

We got to the hospital at around 7 I think. The contractions were so hard by then that I had to stop and lean against Sean when I was having one. I thought it was going pretty good.

When we got upstairs, they checked me, but I was only dilated to 2 cms. They told me that I wasn't in labor and that I needed to go back home, but that they wanted to hook me up to the monitor for a while first just to see how the baby was doing. After about 10 min our nurse came in and said, "well, what do you know! You are in labor.". Duh! They made me get into a hospital gown, even though I was told that I would be able to wear my own shirt. And hooked me back up, even though I said that I wanted to walk around some more (I was really uncomfortable sitting in that bed). I was most comfortable sitting up, but she told me to lie on my left side because it was better for the baby. I always ended up sitting up and one time she came in the room and told me that I was crushing the baby's head by sitting up(!!!) and had me lay back on my left side. Not 10 minutes later she came back in and said "We have a problem." then started to inspect the monitor strip. She didn't really explain anything, she just left the room mumbling something about the Dr. A few minutes later the Dr came in and explained that the baby's heart rate wasn't doing too well and that she was going to break my water and put an internal monitor in. I was not told that they had to screw the monitor into his head, I didn't find that out until after he was born and I asked about the little gash he had on his head. Sean later told me that he had been watching the monitor too, and that his heart rate was fine as long as I was sitting up, but would drop when I was laying on my side.

When they broke my water there was a decent amount of meconium, they said "this is not good, you might want to plan on a c-section". I was in so much pain by that point that I didn't really care, I just wanted the baby out! Even though I had planned on a natural birth I ended up begging for an epidural. They had Sean leave for that, something about a sterile environment, but they had let my mom stay when I had one for Caitlin's birth. They had me in the most awkward position to do the epidural; sitting up curled over, and after that nurse told me that I would crush my baby's head if I was sitting up...hmmm. That position didn't work so they finally let me lay on my side to do it. Before Sean was allowed back in the room, they checked me and found that I was only 3 1/2 cms dilated and that the baby's heart rate wasn't doing any better. They allowed Sean back in the room, but didn't explain what was going on and they were already rushing around getting ready for a C-section. Sean wanted to know what was going, but no one would explain it to him so he started freaking out and crying (the epidural hadn't taken affect yet, so I was in too much pain to explain it to him). They forced him out of the room until he could calm down, which was impossible because he had no idea what was happening! I didn't get to see him again until I was in recovery.

When we got to the delivery room they started poking around to see if the epidural had taken affect yet, it hadn't. They said that there was no time to wait and they were going to have to "put me under". They gave me a shot in my IV that felt like ice water being injected into my veins, then had me count backward from 10. I remember getting to 4 or 5 I think then the next memory I have is of waking up with my family and friends around me in the recovery room. They brought Christian to me right away, but I don't really remember it much because I was still groggy from the anesthesia. Actually, that's how it was for most of my hospital stay. The medication they gave me for pain was much stronger than it was when I had Caitlin, because I can remember a good bit of my stay in the hospital with her, but not with Christian. The nurses even told me that they had to bring Christian in one night and hold him up to my breast to nurse because they couldn't wake me and I made sure they knew that he was to have no pacifiers and no bottles.

Christian had a bit of jaundice so he had to be under the "billie lights" for a day or two, even though the lactation consultant told me that nursing him was the best way to reduce his billieruben (sp) levels. She told the nurses about it, but he still had to stay under. They had me pump some breast milk for him because they said the longer he stayed under the lights, the faster the levels would go down. My sweet little angel would have nothing to do with the bottle though and they had to bring him to me anyway (good boy!!):-) . His levels went down quite fast and it was finally time to go home.

Notes:
Yet again, when I got pregnant with Chandler I was told that Christian's heart rate wasn't that low, and that if they had allowed me to walk around that I might have had a natural birth.

Other notes:
When Christian was about a month old I moved out of Sean's dad's house and in with my grandmother. Sean had to stay because there was no work for him where she lived. We finally got married in July of 95. He continued to live with his dad for another 7 months, coming up on the weekends to see me and the kids. This was really hard on us all, and really affected the bond between Sean and Christian. Boy would this change later! He moved up to Ms in February and we all moved to NC and in with my mom in April. This wasn't easy either, but things would eventually get better.