"Labor" Day

Technically, the night we checked into the hospital was Labor Day. But for our purposes, "labor day" started around 9am Tuesday, September 4.

After our somewhat restless night's sleep, the nurses came in and hooked Bekah up to a pitocin IV around 9am. In my head, I was thinking something along the lines of "OK...we'll be in labor for a few hours and sometime this afternoon our son will be born." In reality, it didn't quite work out that way.

Labor was really, really, really, REALLY slow. And for Bekah it was also really, really, really, REALLY painful. Since it was decided to induce labor a week and a half earlier than our due date, Bekah's body was not ready for Nathan to be born. So we were in for a long day. We played games, watched movies, read books, went on walks around the unit, and did any other mundane activity we could find to pass the time.

Bekah was a real trooper during the whole day. The Lamaze classes we took were really coming in handy. Bekah was doing her best to breathe and try and stay relaxed. I watched the "intensity meter" every now and then to see how things were progressing. There were times when contractions were coming right on top of each other. And she did an amazing job handling them with little, if any, complaints.

After over 13 hours with very little progress, Bekah was extremely exhausted. At that point, we opted for some pharmaceutical assistance to help speed up the process. Around midnight, we had come to the conclusion that it was probably still going to take a few more hours before Nathan was going to be born. So we decided to try and get some sleep.

The drugs were beginning to take effect, and it looked like Bekah was going to be able to get some rest. 15+ hours of labor had taken its toll. Lucky for me, the nurses had brought me in a roll-away bed. It was a much more welcome site than the fold-out chair I had the night before. From the point we were at, I was expecting business to pick up again around 5 or 6am.

I couldn't tell if Bekah was asleep or not, but she looked as relaxed and peaceful as I had seen her since before we started. With that, I rolled over and fell asleep.