It's morning now, and we've made it through the night. Amanda's now dilated to 3 cm and is 100% effaced. She's lost her mucus plug, but her water hasn't broken yet.
Once they gave Amanda the nubain narcotic medicine, they told us she wasn't allowed to have anything but ice chips. What fun is that?! Like a good husband, I sneaked her some ice water and Gatorade on occasion.
Things so far really have been going our way. Who am I to say -- I'm sure Amanda would have hoped to be more advanced than she was when we got to the hospital, and to experience a little less back labor -- but, all in all, it's been pretty good so far. Our next move was to try out the birthing tub.
We had the nurses filling up the tub earlier this morning. As they were filling it up, I caught them reading the instruction manual. Apparently it doesn't get much use! They filled it up half way and the temperature was reading over the maximum recommended 100°F, so they made us wait for it to cool down. (The whole time I'm thinking, why can't we just add some cold water to it?!)
Well, after an hour of waiting -- and listening to the screaming woman across the hall deliver a baby without an epidural -- Amanda finally got her bath. It really did seem cozy -- soft music, soft lights, a good book and a nice big tub filled with warm water.
At this point, I was starting to get hungry and had two alternatives to choose from: make a 10 minute walk for some cafeteria food or walk down 2 flights of stairs and drive the 7 blocks home. Bacon and eggs were sounding pretty good, so I made my way home.
Not a bad choice at all -- I made it home and back to the hospital in just 40 minutes. When I got there, Amanda was practically asleep in the tub! I excused myself to the delivery room where she joined me 20 minutes later . . .
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