January 14

We had scheduled with the hospital for me to go in at 5 pm but were told that they would give us a call when they had a room ready for us. My doctor has also instructed me to eat lunch, but then to eat nothing after noon. At 4 in the afternoon, I was drying my hair when Tim came in to tell me the hospital just called and they were ready for us. I don't know why it shocked me so much, but I was startled that they were calling an hour earlier. I quickly finished drying my hair and packing everything we needed.

Before we left for the hospital, Tim gave me a blessing, with his dad and my brother there as well. I remember hoping that finally the Lord's will would be revealed in that blessing. But once again, it was not. I was blessed with those things I would need though (peace, comfort, strength).

We said goodbye and left Peter and Benjamin with my mom, Tim's parents, and a couple of our siblings. I was not worried at all about how they would do. They were loving the attention of everyone.

We arrived at the hospital and had a short delay in checking in because some information on me was missing. But after they got that taken care of, we were shown to our room. The initial nurse (the one who showed us our room) wasn't aware what was going on, as she had the impression we were like most people and were just needing prostin gel before being induced in the morning. However, another nurse then came in and she was aware of the situation.

Then my doctor came in and checked me. I was not at all effaced and just a fingertip dialated. He ordered that I be given cytotech every 3 hours. Tim and I knew we were in for a long night.

They put an IV in me in a really annoying spot. It was right on the inside bone on the wrist of my left hand. Next they gave me the first cytotech pill (it's given vaginally) around 6:30 pm. Then the visitors arrived! My sister had flown in by this point and my other sister had picked her up from the airport and brought her down. So we had my mom, Tim's parents, my sisters and brother, Tim's sister, and our two little boys. It was fun to have lots of family there to hang out with. The majority of them left when it became obvious that my boys needed to get home and to bed, but my siblings stayed around and we played the Game of Life. Even though they didn't let me win, it was still fun.

During the game, I started to feel a little cramping. At first I thought they were contractions because it was coming and going and the monitor would pick them up, but then it became less of a consistent coming and going and more of a constant irritation. However, it wasn't that annoying to begin with and I was excited that things were beginning.

My siblings left sometime around 9:30 and they gave me the second dose of cytotech at that point. While the pain from the cramping was getting worse, Tim and I decided we would try to get some rest (despite the fact we knew I'd be getting a new pill every 3 hours).

However, rest never really came. After the second pill, my uncomfortableness got worse. I also had to go to the bathroom several times and needed Tim's help with the IV line. Additionally, Emma's heartbeat would begin to fluctuate and our nurse would come in and let us know that it wasn't holding steady where it should be at. But every time, Emma seemed to get it back up to normal, so then the nurse would come back in and let us know that. (Some people might be annoyed by that, but I'm so grateful that our nurse was honest with us). Also, sometimes the monitor would stop picking up Emma's heartbeat and the nurse would come back in and adjust the monitor until she picked it up again.

As the time passed, I became more and more miserable from the uncomfortableness/cramping/contractions. I didn't really know what was going on because it wasn't like my previous labors where there were definite painful contractions. This was just an all around yucky and hurting feeling. Around 11 pm, the nurse gave me a dose of fentanyl to help with the pain. It was wonderful and knocked me right out and I got probably a glorious 45 minutes of sleep! However, it was done after those 45 minutes and I was right back where I had been before: miserable, tired, and in much pain.