The story of how we met {Part 1}

I need to tell our story even though I wasn't sure if I would share it as it was happening. 

It wasn't how I imagined it happening at all. Then I remembered that it happened just the way He knew it would happen and there are sweet blessings through out our story that He wrote.

Wednesday morning I went to my scheduled OB appointment and I hoped for news of progression in how dilated I was. I knew our little guy had "dropped" {basically his head was in position to engage the birth canal} just a few days earlier. I didn't want to get my hopes up but being that Little Dude came at 38 weeks, it was in the back of my mind that maybe Itty Bitty would follow suit.

I was first informed by the nurse that my blood pressure was elevated and there was protein in my urine. She explained that those are signs for preeclampsia. Immediately thoughts of fear and imagining the worst came to mind and since I was already feeling emotional the tears were welling up in my eyes.

My OB decided to have my fluid level checked by ultrasound and also do more in-depth testing. She told me she'd call when she gets the results. If anything came back abnormal she wanted to induce me that night or in the morning. She explained the risks of it turning in to eclampsia and the advantage of me being almost 39 weeks was that the baby was considered full-term and had high chances of being just fine.

I left the office felling very uneasy and got to my car and bawled. I didn't want to be induced but rather go into labor naturally. I was excited to have and meet our baby but had mixed feelings about doing it this way. I trust my OB and knew she understood how I felt about wanting to give birth naturally, but she wanted to do what was safest for the baby and for me.

I called hubby and told him the information I had received. Waiting to hear back from the doctor was difficult and I struggled with feeling anxious. Part of me was excited about the thought of meeting our son with in the next 24 hours. The other part of me was so nervous about the decisions hubby and I would have to make, if they would be the 'right' ones.

That evening a little after 5 pm, my OB called and gave us the results of the tests I had done earlier in the day. They indicated that I did have preeclampsia and she wanted to go ahead with inducing me into labor either that night or first thing in the morning. She did give me the option of staying on bead rest for a few days and then re-testing, but having the two littles to care for I knew that bed rest was not a real option for me.

After weighing all the factors involved for our entire family, hubby and I decided to go in Wednesday night after we had tucked the littles into bed. So we finished packing some things and headed to the hospital.

We checked in to the ER just before 9 pm and went to the labor and delivery floor. The feelings of nerves and anxiousness clashing with excitement and anticipation were almost enough to make me break down. I don't think I stopped talking the entire way to the hospital and all through out our wait. Poor hubby was probably a little bit annoyed, although he did a great job of humoring me and just being a good listener.

We had to wait for a room {round two of "there are no rooms at the inn" like we experienced with Little lady's birth, although I didn't have to labor in a triage room this time so that's a plus!} and hubby did his best to distract me with a game of Cribbage. Around 10:30 pm they got me settled into a room. At this point I wasn't having any contractions and I was dilated to 3.5 cm. My OB was in surgery so the nurse put my IV in and started me on Pitocin.

When my OB arrived I requested that she break my water in hopes of getting my body to start laboring on it's own. At 11:30 pm she broke my water and the waiting game continued...