December 12th – 9 days before due date

It’s kind of funny how the day played out. All we had planned was to finish up the nursery and meet with Ryan’s mom later that afternoon to get the last big baby gift we needed before the little one’s arrival. We were originally going to drive up to see her, but as she lives over an hour away and I was nearing 39 weeks of my pregnancy, she insisted on driving down to see us and drop off the gift instead. I remember telling Ryan the day before that driving up there really wasn’t a big deal to me, especially since I drive him to Boston and back (almost 3 hours round trip with all the traffic) every time he has to go to work. All I have to say, though, is that I’m GLAD she came down to see us. She was only here for a few minutes after we finished hanging the door and a few other things on the walls of the nursery, but as soon as she walked out the door, we were following her and going straight to the hospital.

It was 5:30 that evening and I thought my water had broken. It wasn’t the typical gush of fluid like you see on TV, but rather an annoying trickle. At first I thought I’d just lost control of my bladder, but after going to the bathroom to check on things, I had a feeling that I’d be going into the hospital very, very shortly. I was too scared to say anything at first (his mom was still around) so I waited to tell Ryan and once I told him, I could not stop shaking. I didn’t know if it was nerves or what. All I knew was that I was not ready for what was about to happen. I was almost angry about it. He called the doctor for me and the doctor called me back about 5 minutes later. I explained what had happened to her, telling her that I thought my water had broken. She told me to come into the hospital in order to have things checked out and also explained that if it was indeed my water, that I would start having contractions within the following hours or would have to be induced that night if contractions didn’t start on their own. Naturally I thought the worst and expected to be induced that night. Regardless, we packed the rest of our things (lucky I just put together the diaper bag and my hospital bag a few days earlier!) and got ready to go to the hospital.

It was around 6:30 when we left and throughout the short drive, the only thing on my mind was contractions. They hadn’t started yet and I wasn’t looking forward to them starting. All I could think about was a similar drive we’d made when we lived in Memphis a year and several months ago. All of my thoughts brought me back to that day and made me more fearful than excited about what was going to happen. The miscarriage really took a toll on me. I had to keep reminding myself that this time I was going to be leaving the hospital with a new life and should be happy now, not sad or fearful. That didn’t stop me from being angry, though. I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with myself that night because I sure as hell was not a pleasant person to deal with!

We had no idea where to go once we got to the hospital. We parked and went to the triage area only to find a door locked. We then had to walk over to the main lobby and find out what the hell was going on. I was so mad at that point. I could barely walk because there was a head about to come out between my legs, yet I had to walk all over the place in order to figure out where to go. Of course I could have stayed in the car and let Ryan figure it out, but I was scared to leave him. Some guy in the lobby told us where to go (and couldn’t be bothered to find me a wheelchair or anything) and we headed back to the triage area and in through a different door next to the locked one. Ridiculous. Some signs would have been slightly helpful.

I had to wait a short while before they could get me checked in because there was somebody ahead of me. At the time it felt like at least an hour, but it was probably only 10 or 15 minutes. I felt like I was leaking all over the place and probably made at least 3 trips to the bathroom.

Once they took me back, I had to wait a little longer for a midwife to check me. In the mean time, the nurse had me change into an uncomfortable hospital gown (that I had no idea I’d end up wearing until this time the following day – gross) and then got me set up with a monitor of my contractions and the baby’s heartbeat. She also started an IV since I was positive for group B strep and planned on getting an epidural. I can’t even remember when my contractions started, but I was still not feeling any pain yet. I was 3cm dilated when the midwife checked and I was somewhat shocked to hear that. I didn’t think too much had gone on down there so was pleasantly surprised to hear that things were progressing and I hadn’t felt any of it.

At around 8:30 I was finally in the room where I’d deliver my son. I couldn’t believe 3 hours had already passed since all of this had started. I was just glad to now be able to relax a bit. As much as I wanted to rest, though, I knew that wasn’t going to be happening. I was getting excited at this point, but my hunger was probably what kept me up more than anything. I hadn’t eaten dinner yet that evening and wasn’t going to get a chance to eat until after the little man made his debut. Ryan was hungry, too, and went out to get Wendy’s. He’s lucky I allowed him to come back and eat it in the room with me! All I wanted was a spicy chicken sandwich!

Things went on somewhat uneventfully for the next few hours. Every time they checked me, I was another centimeter and another centimeter dilated. I thought I was doing okay and wasn’t really in any pain yet, but apparently I wasn’t progressing fast enough for the doctor so she put me on pitocin. Not exactly what I wanted or expected. The only thing going through my mind now was everything I’d read about how much stronger and painful pitocin made contractions. I honestly don’t think it really did much to speed things up, as by the time I needed the epidural (which I would have asked for much sooner had I done it all over again!), they had me off of it because my body was working fast enough on it’s own.

At one point throughout my labor I figured I wouldn’t even need the epidural. I don’t know what time or how far along I was when the pain took a turn for the worst (I kind of think it was at 6cm). With every contraction, I thought, “Oh, that wasn’t too bad. I’ll ask for the epidural next time if the next one is worse,” and kept telling myself that until I was in too much pain and could barely sit still through a contraction to get the thing in my back. Once I got the thing, it didn’t even do much to control my pain. I kind of expected this to happen because any time I need to be numbed or put out, it always takes a lot more of whatever it is to get me to feel nothing. So the nurse had to call the anesthesiologist back in to top me off again. I think they had to do this 3 times just to get me numb enough and even then, I could still feel and move my legs and still had pain in one spot of my abdomen. It was bearable for the most part, but not the numbness I expected. Everyone seemed to be shocked that I could still move my legs on my own.

December 13th – The big day

At around 3 or 4 in the morning (I honestly don’t remember), the doctor wanted me to start pushing. I didn’t feel ready to push, but I gave it a try. Feeling pressured into doing it, I was not in the mood to give it my all and give it my all I didn’t! After about an hour, she figured out I wasn’t going to get anywhere and decided to let me rest an hour and try again at 6:00. Whether I got some rest or not, at that point, I was just glad to have time to myself. I was so tired throughout the entire delivery and was sick of constantly being poked and prodded by doctors and nurses that I was ready to go insane. At one point, I think I counted 8 different tubes connecting my body to various machines. The blood pressure cuff was the worst. Whoever decided to make the insides of these things so plastic-y must have been a man because no woman in labor would ever want to deal with a huge plastic cuff around her arm. Hello! Delivery makes you sweaty! I couldn’t even move my left arm because of it and it was making me mad enough that I was ready to rip the thing off and walk out of the room. Now I know they needed to have the thing there, but perhaps they could have found a cuff that wasn’t SO BIG that didn’t take up my entire arm down to past my elbow so that I could AT LEAAT bend my arm and become just SLIGHTLY comfortable.

As I watched the clock approach 6, I was hoping on the inside that the doctor would come later than expected – because that’s what you expect from doctors, right? Right. It was closer to 6:30 when she came back and I really appreciated the extra half hour or so of rest, but now it was time to get down to business and I actually felt like getting down to business this time.

The pushing part went pretty uneventfully. Of course there were some times when I felt I couldn’t push any longer because I’d been up for about 24 hours, but I’m sure that’s to be expected with any delivery. The biggest problem I had was that being on my back was extremely uncomfortable due to the back pain I had during the pregnancy. I hadn’t been able to lay flat on my back for months without it hurting. All I wanted to do was lay on my side and the doctor didn’t seem to want me to do that until she realised she wasn’t going to get anywhere with me on my back. Once she let me roll over, though, she was happy to see that my pushing became much more effective. Wouldn’t take a genius to figure that one out – why not let me be as comfortable as possible? My childbirth prep class spent a lot of time talking about different positions and being comfortable and doing what was right for you so why now when I’m actually here experiencing this can I not try a different position and get comfortable enough to get things done?

An hour and a half later, at 7:59, Andrew was born. The cord was wrapped around his neck (I think they knew this, but I did not) so the doctor had to do an episiotomy in order to get him out quicker. The nurses immediately took him to make sure that he was okay. That time I had to wait to see him seemed like forever, but I knew he was doing fine since the nurse had my husband grab the camera to take pictures while he was cutting the remaining piece of the cord. I have to admit that I was upset that they couldn’t place him directly on my chest after delivery. I felt like I was cheated out of an emotional bonding experience, but I understood why they had to take him immediately. While all of that was happening, I was getting stitches and not too happy about it because I thought I was going to make it through without even a slight tear.

I was happy when they finally gave my son to me and happy to soon be heading out of the delivery room. One of the best memories I think I have is finally being able to see the sun as they wheeled me out into the hallway before taking me to my new room where I could get some rest with my husband and out new baby. One thing was weird, though – I didn’t have that rush of emotions when I first saw him like you always see on those birth story shows on TLC. I always thought I would cry when I first saw him and I think the reason I didn’t was more due to the fact that it hadn’t really hit me yet that he was here. He didn’t seem real to me yet and it actually took a few days for that to sink in.

Overall, the experience was much better than I had envisioned. I went into labor and delivery expecting the worst. My biggest fears were going into labor, having to wait it out at home until my contractions were five minutes apart then going through a 40-hour labor just to find out I needed a C-section. Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with any of that. I think the statistic is something like 18% of women actually have their water break and I was glad to be in that minority because it got me a one-way ticket straight to the hospital with no wait at home. The only thing I wish I could have changed was the urgency the doctor seemed to have with me getting this baby out. The whole process only took about 13 hours, which seems pretty damned quick in comparison to the 40-hour labors I’ve read about and feared. At the time, I really had no idea why they were rushing me. Why the pitocin? Why the pushing when I wasn’t really ready? Why the episiotomy? When I look back on it, though, I can somewhat understand why she wanted me to push so soon and why the episiotomy was a necessity. Early on in the labor, they had to put fluid around the baby in order to float him off of the cord. I don’t know if they knew or could know at that point if the cord was around his neck, but the fact that they could tell it was before he came out is surely the reason for the episiotomy. I’m sure had he been fine, she would have let me push until he was out on his own. I still can’t figure out why they had me on the pitocin, though.

I actually miss the time I spent in the hospital. It was a time of bonding for my husband and I and our new addition. Yeah, labor hurt and yeah, I would have changed a lot of things if I could’ve, but I still have really fond memories of the whole experience and cannot wait to do it again.