Ready. Set. Labor.

Wednesday morning I showed up at Labor and Delivery a little after 7am. I answered a few questions and made sure the front desk knew that C and E would be up eventually.

Once in the delivery room I quickly changed into a gown and got connected to the monitors. I was introduced to three ladies that would end up spending the majority of the day with us. Nurse J, trainee L, and student A. I also answered what seemed like thousands of questions.
I was pleasantly surprised to see Dr. C walk into the room a little before 8am. I really didn't expect to see her with her being out sick the day before. She looked like she felt awful and in the moment I felt so much gratitude for her coming in to help me.

At 8:01, and after a few attempts, Dr. C broke my water. It wasn't a gush, but a slow trickle. Baby girl was still high and I was only sitting at 4.5cms.
Dr. C left saying that she would be back around 11am.
I sent E a text letting her know my water was broken and telling her that it would go slow. She told me they were grabbing a bagel and heading up.

The nurses connected me to a wireless device that monitored the baby so I wasn't confined to the bed. Unfortunately I had to go back to the other monitors when baby girls heart rate started reading crazy. She was fine. The monitor was not. So into bed I went. The contractions were weak and I really didn't feel much other than the occasional fluid trickle.

At 12:25 Dr. C came back to check on me. Sadly, there was little change, 5cms. Pitocin was being started which meant that I would have to labor with an Intrauterine Pressure Catheter, that I dubbed "the wand". A few hours later, while using the bathroom, the wand fell out. The charge nurse attempted to put it back in but felt resistance so she stopped. We had to stop the Pit and wait on Dr. C to come put it back in.
Two things I learned up to this point...
1. When attempting a VBAC you get your own nurse.
2. When attempting a VBAC and using Pitocin, you have to have an IUPC.
Around 2:25 Dr. C put the wand back in and was able to rupture my bag of water again.
By 5pm the Pit was cranked up to 3 and we were contracting every 3 minutes. 
By 7pm the Pit was cranked up to 8 and we were contracting every 3 minutes.

I went into this expecting things to take longer than normal. It was something that I thought a lot about and accepted. As the day went on I would set new goals for myself. 11am. 4pm. 7pm... midnight. I can't say that I didn't give up hope, I did.

By 7pm the ladies that spent the day with us were gone and our new nurse, S arrived. She adjusted the monitors to her liking and asked me about the contractions. When I told her that I still felt them in my back she started checking on the baby and said that she was face up. She suggested we try other positions to help her turn. So it began...