***warning - graphic labor and delivery talk ahead! if you don't want to know about things popping out of my vagina, don't read on!***

So I think I finished off the last post with contractions, right?

Anyway, I woke up at 7am with this weird feeling in my belly. It wasn't actually painful, it was more like a tightness. I thought nothing of it and went back to sleep. Twenty minutes later, the same feeling. I realized it could be a contraction and drowsily waiting for the next one. During that time I contemplated if I was in labor or if this was just Braxton Hicks (false labor contractions). The baby's due date was still a couple weeks away, and as much as I had over the weeks before that I wanted the baby out and we were ready, a voice shouted inside, "We're not ready!"

I didn't have a chance to go over the baby bag, I wasn't sure if the pants I had put in my hospital bag would fit me, I didn't back my battery charger, we hadn't set up the baby swing yet, I needed to set up my new laptop and desktop, I needed to do a load of baby clothes, our new couch set was coming that Wednesday and we had an appointment with Comcast that Monday to fix our cable. There was so much more...my head was reeling.

Fifteen minutes later, another contraction. Ten minutes later, another one. I wasn't panicking or anything, since the doctor told me not to call in until the contractions were 5 minutes apart. Once the contractions were 10 minutes apart, I turned over in bed and I told Dave, "Hey, I just wanted you to know that I've been having contractions for the past hour."

His eyes lit up and he said, "Really? Should we call the doctor?" I told him not until the 5 minute mark. At this point the contractions were getting a little more painful. Not like a shooting pain like I thought they would be but more of a tightness, very uncomfortable. He let me stay in bed and gave me a notebook to write my "things to do" - things for him to get ready before going to the hospital. I called up my sister to apologize for not being able to make it to her party, but she was at church. I took a shower in between contractions, had a quick breakfast - wedding cake from the night before, set up the prizes for games at Claudine's shower and finally, I had a set of contractions that were 5 minutes apart. By then, it was about 10:30am.

I called the doctor and the answering service paged her (there's no one at the office on Sundays) and she called back. She asked how far apart the contractions were and I told her 5 minutes apart. She gave me the OK to come in and to go to triage and the hospital would take it from there. I got a chance to talk to Claudine and the first thing she said to me was "Why do you have to steal my thunder?!?" (stealing thunder is a phrase we use when someone takes the spotlight from you) But of course, she was joking. I told her that I'd send over my lasagna and the stuff for the games with Dave's dad, and that I didn't plan to do this - to blame the baby!

We then headed to the hospital. Traffic was light for a Sunday morning, though it was tough to have contractions in the car. They went back to about 7-8 minutes apart. We got to the hospital, valeted the car, and went up to triage. We were taken to a room were I was hooked up to a bunch of monitors, one for the baby's heartbeat and other to measure contractions. Dave and I were videotaping it, which was a lot of fun. The nurse said that my contractions were actually not too bad, and asked if I was in a lot of pain. I told her that I was just uncomfortable, but I could breathe through them. My contractions were still pretty far apart, and the nurse said I'll probably be there for an hour or so I could be monitored to see if they got closer together. She then checked my cervix and made an "Oh!" of surprise - I was already 6 centimeters dilated. Normally someone would be having strong contractions by then. (I think I failed to tell you guys that at my last Dr. appointment, she had told me that I was already 3 centimeters dilated). However, I was "relaxed and comfortable".

She said we were going up to the labor and delivery room, and asked if I wanted to walk or if I wanted a wheelchair. I opted for the wheelchair because, come on, how often am I going to get pushed around a hospital in a wheelchair?

We got to the room and got reattached to all the monitors. Now it was time for the waiting game - waiting for my contractions to get my cervix to 10 centimeters. They asked me if I wanted my epidural, and of course, I said "YES!" I'm no hero. I'm a wimp with pain, even if I wasn't getting the "getting stabbed with a knife" pain that I expected with the contractions - I didn't want to know what the BIG contractions were like!

I then got hooked up to an IV and talked to the anesthesiologist (who shall be known as the A-Doc since I don't want to keep typing that word). Dave and I had talked about my epidural many times, and he's practiced on my back, trying to figure out where they'd stick it in. He had told me that the spaces between my spine were really tight and the doctor would probably have a hard time with him. So when I talked to the A-Doc, I knew of most of the things that he was asking about. He was a really nice and friendly guy and I felt very comfortable with him. He left and my doctor came in and checked my cervix - after an hour my cervix opened up another 2 centimeters, bring me to 8 centimeters. My doctor said that although I wasn't having regular contractions, the contractions I was having were very effective - the labor was progressing along very quickly. She figured that the baby would be born that same day.

My doctor left and the A-Doc came back in to start the epidural. Dave let him know that he was a doctor, too, and then the doctor talk started. I ceased to exist to my husband and he started sharing doctor lingo with the A-Doc. One of the OB residents came in break my water. She had this thing that looks like a really long crochet hook (unless it really WAS a long crochet hook - break the water, then crochet some booties!) to break the water with. Luckily, I had gone to birthing class a couple weeks before so it didn't alarm me. She stuck her fingers in to check out how far dilated I was an then I felt this gush coming out of me. The doctor let out a "Oh!" of surprise and looked at the hook and said, "Well, I guess I didn't need this, did I?" Having my water break didn't feel like I thought it would. I thought it would feel like I was losing control of my pee, but it was a completely different sensation.

Then it was the A-Doc's turn. Dave left the room (though I'm sure he would have LOVED to stay and watch another A-Doc at work) and I assumed my cat posture - which is what Dave told me to do. The nurse was great, talking to me and asking me questions about myself to distract me from what was going on behind my back. As Dave had predicted, I wasn't an easy patient. But it finally got in (after a couple winces by me) and the epidural was in effect.

Dave came back in and it became a waiting game. Waiting for me to hit that 10cm mark and for the epidural to kick in. I really wasn't in too much pain without it (and I had a crazy thought that maybe the next time I could skip it altogether) but I was happy that I wouldn't be feeling that discomfort anymore - though I said there wasn't too much pain, there still was a good amount of it. After a bit the A-Doc came back in and tested to see how the epidural was working. I still had some feeling in the places he tested (I should only have felt pressure). So he upped the dosage a bit.

Everything after that is a bit of a blur. I really should have had a notebook or something, or had Dave take some notes so I didn't forget anything. I do remember throwing up several times. They said it was normal for an epidural and women in labor. I hate throwing up, especially when you have nothing left to throw up and you're just dry-heaving. They were kind enough to give me a nice basin to puke in. Turns out I was so excited to eat breakfast, which consisted of wedding cake from the night before, that I didn't chew it properly - which I saw in chunks when I threw up. Yes, I know you wanted to know that information.

What happened next I'll just summarize since I really don't want to go into detail about it, partly because I'm not exactly sure what happened and also because I don't want to blame anyone. Let's just say that I realized I was numb everywhere below my neck except for my arms. Turns out there was a problem with the epidural, or my reaction to it, that I couldn't feel anything. Several A-Docs came in to check on me and they couldn't figure out what happened. But it wasn't necessarily a bad thing since the baby was unaffected, and it was if I was getting the anesthesia for a c-section. But yeah, pretty much my whole body was dead weight, I couldn't move anything, couldn't feel anything. There finally came a point at around 4pm where they just turned off the epidural so I could start pushing.

My contractions were very strong by then, and I was almost at 10cm. They decided to put me on Pitocin to speed up the process a little more. Because of the epidural issue, my OB wanted to wait til it wore off and I could feel the pressure of the contractions so I knew when to push. So we waited. I napped on and off during the day, but as the day wore on I was nagged by the shivers, which they said was a normal thing. It was pretty annoying, though, when I'd try to sleep but my body was shaking so much I couldn't sleep. My aunt and father-in-law came by the hospital and waited in the room with Dave. There really wasn't much for the to do but sit around and wait. I also tried to call everyone at Claudine's bridal shower to give them updates. It was actually a good thing that Claudine's shower was on the same day - I didn't have to call tons of people to notify them - they were all in one place!

After a while, I was at 10cm, and all we had to do was wait til the epidural wore off. They constantly checked my blood pressure as well as my temperature. Waiting was ok since I could nap and Dave had a television to watch the Cub's game on. At around 6:30, I started having a fever - my temperature got pretty high. My OB said we couldn't wait any longer for the epidural to wear off so I had to start pushing. Since I was hooked up to a machine that monitored my contractions, the doctor would know when I was contracting - therefore, when I should be pushing.

Since my legs were pretty much dead weight, Dave and the nurse held up my legs every time I needed to push, and I would pull them back with my arms. A contraction came and the OB told me to push, and she had her fingers inside and told me to push towards her fingers. I told her that I couldn't feel her fingers, so she told me to just try pushing and she'd tell me if I was pushing right. I had to push three times, each time for 10 seconds. 10 LONG seconds! After a couple tries, I started pushing the 'right' way. In between pushes, they'd let my legs down and we'd wait for the next contraction, usually watching the Cubs game that Dave had on. So for a while it went that way - contraction, pushing, Cubs. Contraction, pushing, Cubs. I was doing pretty good pushing considering I had no feeling at all. I was just pretending to push. I was throwing my upper body into it because that's all I could feel.

Then it came to a point where the OB was saying, "I can see the head!" Dave looked in and I could see the happiness in his face as he could see the top of the head peeking out. Knowing that I was so close gave me a burst of fresh energy, because I was getting pretty tired from all the pushing. I can't imagine how tired I would have been if I could actually FEEL what I was pushing!

So after more contractions (more than I thought were necessary after the head was showing), the OB said, "You know, we don't have to wait for another contraction, just give me one big PUSH!" I pushed my heart out and all of the sudden I felt this release in my belly. The only way that's close to describe it is when you have to take a dump and you release a huge dump and you feel it empty out of your ass. That's kinda how it felt. To tell the truth, it was the ONLY feeling I had during that whole part of the delivery.

My little baby was out and I could hear him crying/gurgling. Everything is a blur from there. I can remember the doctor asking Dave to cut the umbilical cord and then having the baby placed on top of my belly. As I saw him I got all teary thinking that this was FOR REAL, and that my baby is out. I looked at him and touched him and he was all weird and slimy. I said "hello little baby!" and I just stared at him. This was my baby!

Then a flurry of activity after that - they nurses wisked him away to do their testing on him and Dave went to grab our video camera. The OB was busy giving me some stitches (I'm not going into detail but there will be those of you out there that know what they're for). Fortunately, the epidural was still working, so I didn't feel a thing. However, at that point in time I had a major achievement, outside of having the baby, that is - I was able to wiggle my toes!

We were in the labor room for a while - there were a lot of tests and they wanted to make sure my fever was going down. By the time we left I could kind of move my legs, but they were like jello - they were flailing everywhere when I tried to move them around. It was actually quite funny. Dave spent a lot of time videotaping the baby's first bath and lots of other things. One cute thing was when the nurse was measuring the baby, he grabbed the nurse's latex glove and wouldn't let go. My baby's got a strong grip!

They put me in a wheelchair and gave me the baby (I had feeling in my arms so that was no problem) and we went up to the room I would be staying in to recover. When I got up there, Dave's parents, my dad, and all my aunts and uncles were there to greet me (I had already seen a couple of them in the labor room). It was great to see them all there - there were about 10 of them there, and it was great to see all of them. I realized that this baby would have so many people to love him and protect him. They all took turns holding him and taking pictures with him. Everyone was so excited to see him and so happy. Although a part of me really missed my mother and wished she was there, having the rest of my family around helped alot. I felt so surrounded with love, and so happy.

Of course, I felt incredibly tired, too. But my heart was filled with joy at the thought of my perfect little boy....

Whew! That was one long post!

I'll write more about the day after and stuff when I get a chance! For now, here's a picture of us right after the baby was born...

...I'm smiling so much because I'm drugged and can't feel a thing!

Posted by Yano at April 21, 2006 12:04 AM

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