So, I left off with Mark and I going to the hospital while Ethan was at home, sleeping, with Nana watching him. We got to the hospital at around 7am, by which time my contractions were 3 minutes apart. After walking what seemed like 3 miles to get to the Birth Center, they rushed me into the 1st room (not a delivery room) to monitor my contractions and see how I was doing. I was in so much pain at this point that I looked at Mark and said, "I just want this to be over. I don't want to do this anymore." We were still hopeful that they could stop my labor, but as they hooked me up to equipment and placed an IV in my arm, it was becoming more and more evident that the baby would be born that day. Then came the true test-checking to see how dilated I was. The nurse (Amy) checked, looked at us both, and said, "Oh, wow!" which I found out later meant I was dilated to 8cm. Amy called Dr. McNelis and Mark called my mom. "Looks like we're having a baby today..." he told her. Then he called both of our employers to tell them what was going on. Meanwhile, I was still in pain and waiting to go to the OR. I tried to rest as much as possible until Dr. McNelis got there. She checked me over, kept commenting how surprised she was to see me there, and then asked Mark a question. She said that while Buffalo Hospital doesn't do VBACs (that's vaginal birth after cesarean), being that I was so far dilated and the baby was sure to be smaller than Ethan, did Mark think I could push the baby out or should they still prep the OR? He replied that he and I both thought it best to stick with our original plan of having a cesarean. (BTW-I am so glad that we did. We later found out that Collin's umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, so it could've caused complications had we tried to deliver naturally, or even if he would've been born when he was supposed to).
The nurses started prepping me for surgery as they gave Mark his scrubs. Meanwhile, my contractions were getting more and more intense. They wheeled me into the OR and then helped me get up and hunched so the anesthesiologist could give me my spinal block in between contractions. (He did a much better job than the anesthesiologist I had for Ethan). After that, I felt GREAT! They leaned me back, continued to prep for surgery, then brought Mark in to sit by me, along with Dr. Spinal Block. Dr. McNelis ran through the procedure with the OR nurses and then looked at my incision. "Jessica, did you know your incision is crooked? (Darn Dr. Menzies!) Do you want me to straighten it out this time?" I thought about it for a minute and told her just to leave it. They cut me open and began tugging (I didn't feel it nearly as much this time as I did with Ethan. Not sure if that's because they gave me a better spinal block or because Collin was smaller). "La Bamba" was playing on the radio. All of a sudden, at 8:35am, I heard a little cry-it was my little boy! I was so excited! Mark and I looked at each other and smiled. Mark went and cut the cord while I lay there getting stitched back up. I went off to recovery for what seemed like forever (even though it was probably only an hour/hour and a half). Then came the hospital stay, which gets pretty good-a battle royale between me and an evil pediatrician from Albertville. Stay tuned!
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