Well, so much for my dream of a 3 hour labor cause this was my longest labor...13 hours. I count from the time I start contracting at home not the time I check in the hospital. It started around 8 am Friday morning, the day after Thanksgiving and we ended up checking into the hospital at 12:30 in the afternoon that day, and I was 3 cm dilated. We waited a few hours for the epidural so I could move around, but a few hours later I was only 4cm so they gave me the epidural hoping it would relax me enough so that I would dilate more, but a few hours after that I was only at 5cm so they decided to give me some pictocin to get things moving. He was in a face up position so I had back labor and that is the reason for the longer labor time. I tried walking around to get him to move but he would only move alittle so with the pictocin they thought he would get more uncomfortable with those stronger contractions and want to move into position. Well, at 8:20 pm they started the pictocin and around 8:30 I got up to go pee. It took several minutes to sit up and get to the bathroom and then several more minutes to get control of my bladder long enough to pee. The epidural had my bladder all numb. LOL Anyway, so around 8:40 pm I was trying to walk back to my bed from the bathroom and had the strong urge to push, the nurse freaked out and rushed me back to the bed afraid I was going to drop the baby right there. Dan helped me back into bed while the nurse called for help and I started involunterly pushing. I had muconium (sp?) when they broke my water so they needed all the peds and everyone there at the birth which was looking like it wasn't going to happen. The nurse was freaking but she managed to get everyone there except the ped. When the midwife checked me I was fully dilated so I really started to push and 15 minutes later he was born at 8:56 pm. I went from 5 cm to 10 cm and pushing in less then half an hour. If he wasn't face up for so long I probably would have had that 3 hour labor I was dreaming about. The midwife thinks when I got up to go pee that the baby turned into position so it went fast from there. I think I used the term, "that was intense" several times after he was born. LOL So there ya have it, my birth story.
