Birth story

Contractions. Getting more uncomfortable, closer together, starting to get more regular. So many times I had 45 minute stretches of contractions every 5 minutes. I started getting excited numerous times thinking, "this is it! It's gonna be time to call the dr!". And then they went back to every 10-30 minutes. Sigh. Keep waiting. This was my story day after day for week 38. Monday, October 22 I turned 39 weeks. In as much detail as I can remember, this is the series of events that lead to (prepare for cliches) the most amazing, incredible, emotional moment of my existence. 9:15 am Sitting on the couch in my sweats, eating a bowl of apple cinnamon oatmeal, I leaned forward to get a drink of milk. I felt the gush. I didn't hear or feel a pop like I heard so many women talk about. And it wasn't a gush that left me in a puddle of amniotic fluid. But it was definitely big enough that I knew I needed to get off of our micro suede couch before I made a mess. In the second & a half it took me to stand up, I thought to myself, "ok I'm pretty sure my water just broke. I really don't think I peed myself... I had full bladder control yesterday, I don't think I'd lose it over night." I needed to pee anyway, so I went to the bathroom, emptied my bladder, cleaned myself up, took a few steps, leak leak leak. 9:20 am Time to tell Daniel what's going on Daniel was in the garage loading up his trailer preparing for a day of mowing. As he was literally getting ready to close the door on the trailblazer, I walked out of the garage to get his attention. I asked how busy of a day he had planned because I knew I'd have time to take a shower (the last one for who knows how long), & I thought maybe he could squeeze in a couple of mows before we went to the hospital. He skeptically looked at me & asked why, & I calmly explained that my water broke, which meant we were having a baby in the next 24 hrs or so. Bless his heart, the first thing he said was, "Do I need to clean anything up?" luckily we escaped with no mess! Oh & he opted not to mow at all, backed the trailer into the garage & began packing. 9:25 am I called the dr office to let them know my water had broken. I read somewhere that the practioner will assess the sound of your voice to help make a decision on whether it's really time to have you come in or not. I'm a really calm person, & I think this made them not believe that I had truly ruptured. They said to come on into the office & they'd get me seen by whomever had an opening. I showered, dressed, did my hair & make-up in an attempt to start laboring at home. Contractions regular at 8 minutes apart, definitely stronger than before. 11:00 am Arrive at dr office The nurse said I looked pretty good for someone whose water had broken. She didn't believe me. I KNOW THAT'S WHAT IT WAS LADY! Pee in a cup. Check my weight. Check my BP. Undress from the waist down. Wait for the dr. He came in & said he was going to do a speculum exam to confirm I had ruptured. I told him I had leaked a considerable amount on his table, & I didn't think a speculum was necessary. He looked & quickly agreed. Time to check me. Now let me just say that I was naive enough to think you had to be dilated in order for your water to break. Wrong. I was still a finger tip dilated & almost completely effaced. Oh disappointment. I knew as soon as I heard that, it meant I was going to have to be induced, & that almost eliminated the possibility of doing this without an epidural. Eye on the prize...healthy baby is what's important. 12:00 pm Checked in, admitted directly to labor room & settled. I did my capstone in L & D, & my preceptor was my nurse! Thank goodness for a familiar face. I was happy with the dr who was on call. More relief. I let our nurse know pretty quickly that I would need help keeping an eye on Daniel who is petrified of hospitals, needles, blood, etc., & that we wanted NO RESIDENTS. I was fine with orientees because I knew they'd have an experienced nurse with them. 1:00 pm Pitocin started. Pitocin is like a game of torture. If you have any kind of pain tolerance, the chipper nurses come in & turn it up. Turn it up. They want you in pain to know it's working. The dr even said he wasn't going to check me until I was significantly more uncomfortable. 6:00 pm Getting really uncomfortable. I told my nurse I was ready for an epidural. The dr said he'd check me after I got it so that wouldn't hurt me. Thanks. 6:30 pm Anesthesiologist arrives. He had the personality of a blank sheet of paper. Effective at his skill, though...I suppose that's what matters. Instant relief. Dr comes to check me. I'm hoping for 2-3 cm at this point. Nope. Just 1 cm. Prepared myself & let Daniel know we were gonna be here for a long time. Midnight Epidural stopped working on the right side. Redosed by unfriendly anesthesiologist. Nurse checked me. 3 cm. Not much sleeping, too excited for what I knew was coming, even if it was happening really slowly. Also, because I was ruptured for 12+ hrs, I had to have my temperature taken every hour to check for chorio. Blessed to have made it the entire time with no spike in my temperature. 3:00 am Nurse checked me. 5 cm. 5:00 am Epidural stopped working on the right side. Again. Redosed by unfriendly anesthesiologist. Again. No relief this time. Nurse checked me. 7 cm. 7:00 am Shift change. Still 7 cm. new dr on call. The best dr I could have hoped for. Sick to my stomach from pain. New anesthesiologist. So much nicer. He gave me a different medication that made a huge difference. I could feel every contraction but was in no pain. My ideal epidural...only took 12 hrs to achieve that. Zofran for nausea. Muuuuch better. I could finally sleep! 9:30 am The dr came in to check me. He asked if I felt like pushing & we could see what happens. I thought "ok, some practice pushes to move the baby down. I've had a nap. I can practice pushing." the dr sat at the foot of my bed. The 2 nurses sat on either side of me. Daniel sat at the head of my bed. Everyone was so relaxed. I felt awesome. I was so excited to have such a great team around me. 9:41 am I started pushing. The nurses & dr said all the things they're supposed to say: "you're doing such a good job! Keep it up, you're really making progress!". The dr said he could see the head, that the baby had a good head of hair. I kept looking at Daniel who was clearly freaked out. I felt so bad for him. We had fun, easy conversation. Talked about work, whether we had names picked out for a girl or a boy. We told them we were pretty sure it was a boy, so we didn't have girl names picked out. 10:11 I pushed for 5 contractions. On the 6th one, the dr said why don't you just rest for this one & we'll see what happens. Stupid me, I was still thinking I was moving the baby down, I'd get to rest for a while & start pushing again when the baby was really engaged, whatever. However, on that 6th contraction, without any effort on my part, my baby's head was out. A few seconds later the body was out. We heard the cry, the bulb suction... Then he held a perfect, pink baby over me. I did a quick head to toe assessment, and to our surprise, IT'S A GIRL! I looked at Daniel & told him she looked like him. I started drying her off & couldn't begin to control the emotion that overcame me. I looked up at Daniel who was crying too. It was the most perfect moment. Daniel cut her cord, he gave her first bath, & she breast fed like a champ. I know this post is forever long, & I have so much more to say about these first few weeks at home. Thanks for reading. We are blessed beyond belief. God is so good.