Apparently, my baby can read my mind. Or, he must have heard me reading my last blog post out loud. The same afternoon I posted my last blog entry, my water broke and it was GO time!
I started writing this post shortly after returning home from the hospital with my son... but holy crap, taking care of a baby is a lot of work! So, I'm taking a moment while he naps to finish my entry. I'm running on about 5 hours of sleep in the last 36 hours, so please excuse any typos, and I'm no longer responsible for my syntax.
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I never really saw the appeal of reading someone's birth story. Having had the experience of giving birth has changed my mind completely. It's profound. So much so, that I'm afraid I won't be able to encompass the emotion involved... which is how I suppose a lot of people feel, and why birth stories aren't that compelling to the general public. Knowing what I know now, I can listen to the vast untellable behind the words in the birth stories I've read.
Here is ours.
It all began with a movie. With me being four days past my due date on Sunday, November 8, Bryan and I thought we should go see a movie, since it might be the last time we get to do that for a few years. The baby was really active during the film, and I figured he was reacting to the sounds in the theater, which were louder than our usual daily activities. On the way home, we stopped to get some small things at the store. I was feeling unusually sickish, but sick had been my constant companion all throughout the pregnancy, so I wasn't thinking much of it.
I was having some smallish contractions and figured I was dehydrated, so I drank a bunch of water when we arrived home. With so many false alarms, dating back for weeks, I was dubious that this could really be labor.
Bryan and I decided to take a little rest before dinner and laid down on the guest bed in the sunny front room. As we chatted, I felt the contractions come and go, so I drank some more water.
Around 4pm, I got up to use the bathroom and, halfway across the guest bedroom, I felt a rush of warmth starting at my nether regions and spreading all down my legs. We heard in our childbirth class that the water bag rarely breaks early and
very rarely gushes like in the movies. I'm such a drama queen that way.
While Bryan called the OB's office, I tried to empty the rest of myself into the toilet and managed to get most of the fluid, at least, onto the bathroom linoleum. And with that, we rushed off to the OB reception. They'd seen us to much, I think they were ready to roll their eyes and send us away. Luckily, I had soaked my pants and had proof that I was in eminent labor (finally).
After all of the standard checking of vital signs, etc., they assigned us a nurse, who accompanied us upstairs to the labor and delivery room that we would occupy for the next 20+ hours. We stayed in that room through three nurse shift changes, one of which, I spent the entirity of nearly unconscious.
Because my water broke so early in the labor, and because I had tested positive for Strep B (a bacteria that comes and goes in healthy adults, but can cause issues for babies), the staff wanted to get my labor going faster. They gave me Pitocin, which increases the strength and intensity of contractions. Like they aren't painful enough to start with.
The OB on call came in, checked my cervix, and told me it was a big, fat
one centimeter dilated.
ONE! After seven hours of labor. Boo! She took that opportunity to chat with me about possible pain management options. I had been interested in attempting a natural birth, but with the IV for antibiotics, and now the Pitocin, I was feeling less able to move around freely. Besides, every time I got up, a new rush of fluid hit the floor behind me. My sweet, loving husband actually followed me around and cleaned it up. I have to imagine that was part of what they mean in the "for worse" part of "for better or for worse". The OB made a good point in that it was now nearly 11pm. My usual bedtime was 8pm, those days, so I was already good and tired. The OB said that when I was fully dilated (sweet Jesus, when would that be?), I would need to push the baby out. And... well, pushing is hard work, so I might want to be able to rest before my services were needed.
At 11:30pm, I was exhausted, contracting every 3-5 minutes, and terrified of having an epidural. A catheter in my spine? Come on. I have such needle phobia that I nearly passed out when they inserted the IV. But, fatigue is a funny thing that way. I called for the nurse, and she hooked me up with the anesthesiologist, a funny, charismatic man in his late 30s. He was magical, and in my blurry thought process, he was some sort of angel or elf or other do-gooder character. Mmmm... epidural.
So, for the next seven or so hours, Bryan and I slept on and off. I was constantly awoken by the automatic blood pressure cuff (every 15 minutes) and nurses checking my nethers (5 centimeters, 7 centimeters, 9.5 centimeters!). I also felt a lot of pressure in my... downstairs areas. I was confused as to why the baby wanted to come out of my butt, frankly. Nobody tells you that having a baby feels like being really constipated. Weird.
At 9am, the hospital staff decided it was time to push and, just like that, it was show time! The nurse said average pushing time is two hours for first timers. So at 11am, I was all,
"What the hell, Baby? You're late!" He was, in fact, stuck on my pubic bone or something of the sort. I remember everything in a foggy haze of sleep deprivation and endorphins. Then, the nurse midwife (who happened to be a man, by the way), whom I had met several times in the past, came in to help out. According to Bryan, he literally stuck his hands inside my hoo-hah and turned the baby. Apparently, Little B was "sunny side up", or in layman's terms... facing the wrong way to make a clean exit. After that, within 10 minutes (or maybe it was an hour... who was counting?), my son was born. I had a mid-husband's hands all up inside and a lady doctor putting all of her weight on me just under my ribs, and then, someone said,
"Look down." And there he was. All bluish and slimy and beautiful. He was so quiet and stunned. And then... he let out a wail I'll remember always. That's my boy!
Within minutes I was being sewn up. There was some business about a placenta. Did I want to see it? Ew. No. Bryan saw it and it nearly scarred him for life. Besides, why would I want to see some ugly old placenta when I had this beautiful little brand new person on my chest? His hands are huge, like Bryan's, and I noticed his fingernails immediately. Shaped like his daddy's.
Then, he was nursing. And they wheeled me upstairs to postpartum recovery. And Bryan and I spent the next two days blissfully falling madly in love with our baby. He took some time to figure out, and we're still working on understanding him.
And this is all the most incredible thing I've ever done or can ever imagine doing. And that's the best way I can put it. That's what I meant by not being able to put it into words. There just aren't any that suffice.
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