Anthony Leonard DiFiglia

August 6, 2008 at 3:01 am

8lbs 4oz, 21 in.

We are all home, safe and sound, finally. It was a long week and I'll post the birth story as soon as I get a chance!

Last night Danielle, Ed and I played a pretty grueling game of national park monopoly and it really helped to get my mind off of everything as I was too busy kicking ass and buying property :)

I slept pretty well last night for the first time in a while and this morning the doctor's office called to check on me from Saturday night. I was quite blunt and simply said that I was miserable, covered in a rash (I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but apparently it's PUPP and it's been driving me NUTS with itching for a week - I wouldn't wish this on anyone), still having headaches, random contractions, etc. So the nurse conferences with the doctor and asks if I would like to schedule an induction for this week. Now I didn't really want to go down this path, but with the "almost" preeclampsia and this rash (supposedly curable by delivery) I just want to meet our son and know that he's safe without too much drama.

So I get a call this afternoon to schedule the induction thinking that it's going to be at the end of the week and she says that I'm scheduled for tomorrow morning! We go into the doctor to get checked and I'm 2cm, -1, 70%, and my cervix is very soft. I've been very sore and crampy since the exam, but I feel so relieved knowing that Tony will be here tomorrow. Ed is crazy excited/nervous/anxious as any expected father would be. I don't know how we're going to sleep tonight, but I know that I need to get as much rest as possible for tomorrow :)

At 7:30am we check in to have our baby! YAY!

So we get to the hospital last night at 12... my contractions got really bad the hour before I called the doctor so we were optimistic that we would meet our little one before sunrise...

he had other plans...

My blood pressure was 170/110... back on my left side :(

My contractions became sporatic and stopped about an hour after arriving at the hospital :(

My blood pressure went down and I was sent home after taking Ambien to help me sleep :(

I've never taken a sleeping pill before and will not EVER willingly take one again because it really screwed with me... I was already upset for obvious reasons and on top of that I was totally loopy (to say the least)

It was a long night as the Ambien preceeded to make me nutsy, but not sleep through the night...

And so we're back to the waiting game and my next appointment is on Wednesday...

Trying to be patient and optimistic... trying really hard

Ed has asked me this every hour for the past few days...

So at approximately 2:30 this morning I woke up (I was only 1/2 asleep since I had gotten up to go to the bathroom minutes prior to this) to some kind of crazy pain in my tummy. It started high and moved it's way down. Me being 1/2 awake tell Ed I have a stomach cramp and then it dawns on me... "holy crap - that's a real contraction"... so there we were 12 minutes apart, 30-45 seconds long for about an hour... I showered and went back to sleep since they weren't nearly has intense as the first one... I mean seriously it was like BAM! - this is what a real contraction feels like... 

So I wake up several times throughout the rest of the night due to a crazy thunderstorm and potty breaks and more contractions... I started to time them when I got up around 11 and they were about 45 seconds every 10 minutes... they didn't hurt but it was definitely hinting that it was in fact early labor...

So we depart for the afternoon as we were showing the house and went to walk around Babies R Us and then we stopped at Red Lobster for some yummy cheesy bay biscuits :)... As soon as we sat down the wait staff sings Happy Birthday to the table next to us... a sign???... As we were sitting there the contractions became a bit more uncomfortable (no crazy pain) and I mentioned that they felt closer together... Yup 8 minutes apart at 2:30pm... and so we go home since I'm still on modified bed rest and it was time to lay down...

I watch Hellboy and nap then I time them again at 5:00pm and they are getting more uncomfortable and are about 6.5-7 minutes apart for 45 sec- 1 minute...

By 6:30 they were 6 minutes and lasting anywhere from 45 seconds to 1.25 minutes...

It's 7:45pm now and they are still every 6 minutes, starting to hurt more, lasting for about 1 minute each...

Ed's mom is on her way and Danielle (godmother) will be hitting the road soon...

The contractions need to be every 3-5 minutes for 30-45 seconds for 2 hours before I call the doctor... my guess is that I'll be calling around 10...

Water has not broken yet (probably why the contractions aren't as painful as I was anticipating them to be at this point - not that I'm complaining)

So we have a while to go, but that's where we're at right now...

Fingers are crossed...

I can't wait to meet our son!