It’s taken me a year to write down my son’s birth, because to me it was more traumatic than beautiful. I wrote a condensed version in his baby book and told my family and friends all about it. But I feel like writing it all down makes it real, and for some reason I just could never get to that point with this story.
Now of course it has been a year. Now I would have my birth experience 10 times over if I got the same result-a beautiful perfect baby boy that I love with all my heart. That being said, emotions have worn off a little, and every detail of the day(s) won’t be recounted. That saddens me that parts won’t be remembered. But I will do the best I can, and probably edit 100 times as more things come to mind.
So here it goes.
I was 3 days overdue. I had decided that Friday before (my due date) was going to be my last day at work, because let’s be honest-who wants to be around a women who is over 40 weeks pregnant. I was doing EVERYONE a favor (well-except my husband, he didn’t get that luxury). I had tried ALL WEEKEND LONG to get that baby out. Walking, spicy food, walking, sex, more walking, pineapple, yardwork, and of course walking. When I had gone to the doctor a few days before my due date I was only a “fingertip” dilated, which was very disappointing to hear considering I swore that kid was coming early. I had an induction scheduled, but trying to avoid it. So come Monday morning, 5:55 am my body woke me up to go to the bathroom (for probably the 4th time that night-so no 2nd thoughts about it). But when I was walking to go back to bed, I felt a trickle down my leg. I was of course confused, was I still peeing? I just got done how could there be more pee! Do I need to live on the toilet now! Nope. Finally it clicked that “hey, I don’t think that’s pee.” I yelled out to my husband who woke up surprisingly quickly. “Kevin- I think my water just broke…” He jumped out of bed, came into the bathroom, and we both kind of just stood there for a second until he said, “Ok well, do I have time to shower?” I was laughing at that point, giddy that my baby was finally coming. He got in the shower and I got back on the toilet as more fluid was coming out of my as I laughed (*Sorry did I warn TMI? If you don’t like it you might as well stop reading because I have no filter anymore). No contractions had started, so I was just excited and trying to get everything ready to go. We didn’t call anyone yet in case it was a false alarm. We put some towels down on the seat (because what no one tells you when you’re water breaks is that it keeps coming out, for like a long time. So much fluid) and headed to the hospital. I was still all smiles, nervous and excited. When we got to the hospital, right around 7 am exactly I remember saying, “can you believe it, this is perfect! We get here right at shift change, we’ll have one nurse, don’t have to be up all night, and we’re having a baby TODAY!!” Spoiler alert: I was wrong.
We got to triage and they had to test my fluid to make sure it was my water not pee, and I finally had my first contraction. It was small, I was more excited about it than anything. Then that was it, no more contractions. So fast forward through the triage part-because that was just time and boring. I got into my room, they got me hooked up to all the monitors and immediately onto Pitocin because I wasn’t having any contractions. That’s when the real fun began.
Unbeknownst to me our hospital had a lot of students, so they asked if they minded that I had one do my IV. Well, I’m a teacher so of course students can be there, I just didn’t want any men looking into my vagina. (HA like that mattered later). He couldn’t really figure out the IV so after being pricked a few times the nurse had to do it. Ouch but no big deal. In the beginning it was pretty fun in the hospital. I hadn’t had breakfast so I ordered breakfast and gravy, we put on my favorite movie at the time, “LaLa Land” and listened to the fun songs. Contractions eventually became stronger and stronger. We did the typical “get the baby out” things, walked around the hospital, bounced on a ball, all that jazz. Oh yea I forgot to say, when they checked my cervix when I first got to the hospital I was only dilated 1 CM!!! So that sucked. It was obviously going to be a long day. Kevin ended up going to class because I wasn’t progressing very quickly. My mom came and walked the hospital with me. I remember telling her, “I wish we knew if I was going to need a C-section or not. Like, why go through all this work when I won’t be able to deliver in the end.” For some reason I felt like I would need a C-section. My mom had one with me, and although that was just because she had to (they didn’t do VBACS at that time) I still felt like I would.
The pain was starting to get really bad. Come to found out I was having “doubling” and “tripling” contractions. So instead of one big contraction, I was basically having 2-3 in a row for like 2 minutes. It was ROUGH. They would turn down the Pitocin, then turn it up, and they could never find a good amount for me. My body was just really sensitive to it.
I eventually got in the tub and that helped a little, but ended up getting out and getting some drugs. Holy Hannah’s that helped a ton. I just got the IV pain meds and that finally allowed me to rest a little, because I was very tired. I felt so much better. I ended up getting that one more time then got the epidural. They checked me a little before that and I was only at a 4. I was heartbroken because It was going waaayyyy slower than I thought it would.
Shift Change. New nurse.
Getting the epidural was ridiculously hard because you have to sit super still. Everyone is in a mask around you so it’s kind of scary, and with my crazy contractions I felt like I was constantly having one, and that’s like torture to sit still. Eventually it started working and it was like MAGIC! I remember texting my friend about how everyone needs that during birth. Huge Kudos to those who don’t get meds because I could not do it. However, an epidural is gravity based, so you have to keep flipping sides. Well I felt pain in my right side, so I would flip, then baby’s heart rate would drop. This kept happening, so turns out my epidural was one sided so I needed to get a new one. THEN the nurse decided my contractions were too weird so maybe the monitor wasn’t working very well (at this point I was going on over 12 hours of labor and was exhausted- I had no concept of time whatsoever and was really there only half way). So they decided to get an IUPC put in. For those who don’t know, google says; “An intrauterine pressure catheter (IUPC) is a device placed into the amniotic space during labor in order to measure the strength of uterine contractions.” So they called the on-call doctor, who had a resident with him. So they let the male resident place the IUPC (see, I told you I wouldn’t care later)and it was taking forever! He apparently didn’t do it right because it wasn’t measuring anything. SO they called them back. The nurse went to grab a new IUPC and it somehow was open. She went to get a new one, all while I am laying there, spread eagle, as two male doctors were standing by my vagina, talking to my husband about the football game that was on the screen.
That was the moment that I knew all modestly had gone out the window.
So anyway, got that placed. The next few hours were kind of a blur. My husband was able to sleep. I was able to doze. And finally sometime the nurse told us it was almost time. Between getting the epidural and the IUPC I went from a 4 to a 10 in about 2 hours. I remember thinking, “oh my gosh this is actually going to happen.” Well I was pushing and pushing. This was sometime in the wee hours. Eventually I heard the nurse call the doctor and say that there was a lot of swelling and that they needed her. The doctor came in and I pushed some more. I remember her just watching for a couple pushes and not helping at all, and decided she was going to try a vacuum. She said she didn’t like to do a vacuum unless she was 95% sure it was going to work. She tried it, didn’t work. She tried again, didn’t work. Turns out that was her first failed vacuum in 20 years of delivering babies. Go us!
Then it was decided I needed a C-section. My first two comments? 1. I don’t care just get this baby out of me. 2. Well at least I get two more weeks of maternity leave.
Shift change. New nurse (with a student!)
The next part was a blur. I could barely open my eyes I was so exhausted. Turns out I was pushing for 4 HOURS. There was so much swelling that they were getting really concerned. I remember freaking out that I was going to stop breathing during my C-section. My husband thinks I had an actual panic attack during it at some point. All I remember is feeling pressure in my abdomen, and hearing, “Oh my gosh this baby is CUTE!” and that was the best. My husband tells me later that the doctor was literally standing on the table with her whole arm in my body because baby was so low in there. I can only imagine what that looked like but I wish I had a picture. Baby came out at 8:22 AM on Tuesday September 12th. 26 hours after my water had broken. They put him next to me to look at but I couldn’t even hold him because I was so out of it. They sent him with my husband while they got me put back together (which my husband was not a fan of).
I couldn’t hold my baby by myself until hours after birth. The first time I actually held him the nurse put him on my boob to breastfeed, and she asked if she could let go and I said no, because I couldn’t hold him on my own. That was a very hard moment. All of this was very hard. I still get teary eyed that I wasn’t the first to hold him. Or he wasn’t laid on my chest right away. I could talk for days about the emotional hardship this birth had on me. But since this is so long- if anyone is actually still reading- I will save it for another post. But let’s look at the stats:
2 IVs
2 IV meds
2 Epidurals
2 IUPCs
3 nurses (well-main nurses, 2 shift changes)
5 days, 4 nights in the hospital
26 hours of labor
And of course
1 baby boy. THE BEST THING EVER.
First Family picture…swollen face and all.
