Gettling Settled In...

Here's a rundown of the day so far since we got here to St. Luke's South...





11am – Left home for Target.
11:15am – Target to get some last minute things for the hospital.
11:50am – Arrived to St. Luke’s South. Registered. Room 306. Our nurse is Stacey. Pam and Jerry followed us to the hospital and came in to get us settled and then went to run some errands. Stacey, our nurse (at the suggestion of Kim and Derik) is fantastic. She hooked up the IV of 1.) Pitocin and 2.) Sugar water.
12:15pm – Brittney starts to have mild contractions - this is great as it tells us the Pitocin is working
12:30pm – Dr. Arroyo came in and gave Brittney a check and she was dialated to 2 cm and effaced to about 70. Dr. Arroyo decided we could go ahead and break Brittney’s water so he did. He left soon after.
1:00pm – Everything looks good. Things are starting to progress and Brittney's contractions are getting more intense. We need to start thinking about the epidural.
2:00pm – Nurse Anesthetist, Angela Harvey, came in and explained everything about the Epidural.
2:30pm – Nurse Anesthesist, Angela, came and gave the epidural. Angela kept asking Brittney to slouch her shoulders and to put her chin to her chest. This whole process looked very painful but Brittney was very strong and after THREE TRIES Angela finally got it where it needed to be and shortly after Brittney was feeling much better.


3:00pm - Brittney's blood pressure was a little low and the baby's heart rate was falling after the peak of each contraction...not a lot but enough to prompt Stacey to call Angela, the nurse anesthetist, to come back. She came up and put some Ephederine in Brittney's line to increase her blood pressure. It worked quickly.


3:30pm - Stacey hasn't left our side since the epidural. She said everything was going well and just left.


3:45pm - Brittney can still feel the contraction but they are much better now. Brittney is reading her smut (US Weekly) magazine and I just got done chatting with Pam and Jerry and my dad who were in the waiting room. Now we'll just wait for the contraction to start picking up. Unfortunately, Stacey will leave at 7pm and we'll get a new nurse. I attached a picture of our great nurse, Stacey, and Brittney.

As for me, I realized there is a big room with all the snacks you can eat. I just grabbed some cookies, chips, cheese, crackers and a turkey sandwich! I'm going to take full advantage of that all-you-can-eat buffet! I have to eat it on the sly as Brittney can't eat anything right now and I want to be a good birthing partner! Brittney found the Tori Spelling Show Marathon on the Oxygen Channel so that's what we've been watching since we arrived. We've listened to my Jack Johnson mix on the IPod twice already.

More to come...