The Birth of Maggie: A Tale in Two Acts

I can't believe it's been one whole week! Little Maggie's birth story really has two distinct parts: the night I spent in the hospital before labor and when I actually started laboring. It might end up as one post, but for writing purposes I'm going to divide it into two parts. We'll see how long things are when I get to the end of part one.

Last monday night I checked into the hospital at 9pm. The plan was to get my labor started with a drug called cytotec that night and then proceed with pitocin in the morning. I was apprehensive at best about the pit, but I had already hashed through those feelings and was willing to roll with it. We got situated in our room and the nursing staff set about starting my IV. Again, not something I was excited about, but WHATEV already. Except that for some reason they couldn't get one going. So I got stuck four times and I now have bruises up both arms, currently making me look like a pudgy IV drug abuser. Nice.

A call to the IV team later and I was sufficiently stuck. Then the resident came in to check me out. After she left, someone from the janitorial staff showed up because apparently resident lady thought the room smelled funny and insisted on having it re-mopped. This will be relevant again later, so remember that.

Once I was IV'ed and my room was mopped I was given my first dose of cytotec. SOB went home to get some sleep at my insistence. I knew I wasn't going to sleep well, so one of us should. Plus he snores, so having him in my room would probably make what little sleep I was going to get even worse. The hospital is five minutes from our house, so I knew he could get there in plenty of time if necessary.

Because I was spending the night in a labor and delivery room, the bed was awful. Plus I had to be on the monitors, so every time I shifted the nurses had to come in to reposition them. I finally just about dozed off around 1am when another janitor came in to mop my room. Again. Apparently one of the nurses sent them this time. When she came in to apologize, she explained that the smell in the room was bothering her so badly that she wouldn't be able to effectively 'nurse' me because she would have subconsciously avoided coming into my room. First off, the horrible smell in my room? I hadn't noticed it at all. And secondly, FINE! Don't come into my room! Leave me alone to sleep in the middle of the night. Awesome! Instead I got a full floor scrubbing in the middle of the night.

After all of the mopping was done I got a second dose of the cytotec around 2:30am. I finally dozed off around 3am and slept off and on until about 5:30am, when things really got going...