Labor & Delivery

::WARNING!::

Long, boring, detailed, picture-less post ahead!

On Friday, August 6th, K and I had mattress and movie night. Around 3:30am I got up to go to the bathroom and thought I had wet my pants, again. (Don't. Ask.) The bed wasn't wet so I was happy to find that I wasn't incontinent. I went to the bathroom and was walking back to bed when I thought I was wetting my pants...again. A little sleepy and confused, I turned on the light to see water trickling down my leg. I didn't really get it, so I went back to the bathroom, cleaned up, and walked back to bed. Again, water started running down my leg. Oh! This is it!!! It finally hit me. "K! Get up! My water is breaking!"

We called the doctor, and our moms, and headed for the hospital.

When we arrived they did some testing to make sure the fluid was, in fact, amniotic fluid. All tests came back negative. What?! Lastly they did an ultrasound to check my fluid levels, and low and behold, my levels were really low. I was leaking from somewhere- who knows where. They told me because of this I would be having a baby that day! Woop! Liars.

I still had high hopes for a natural, non-medicated birth. After a long time, I still wasn't contracting. Because of how long my water had been broken they said that they needed to augment my labor to get things started. They gave me a round of Cervadil, and said they would be back to check on me in 8-12 hours. Huh? That's it? I have to wait 8 hours? Lame. So we waited. When I was checked again I still hadn't made any progress. The clock was ticking and my water had been broken for almost 24 hours so they started me on Pitocin to rush the contractions. After a few hours of that I was definitely contracting. I was breathing through each contraction and had in my head that I could do this. I can do this! I am doing it! Hooray! Yeah, hooray for abouuuuut 5 hours. When I was checked again- after all these contractions- I had made it to *Drumroll Please* 1 centimeter. 1 CENTIMETER?! I have been here forever!!! I am hurting!!! I am working hard!!! Ugh. So, they decided to up my dose of Pitocin. And, by "up" my dose I mean kick it up about 10 notches.

Oh. My. Pain.

It hurt so bad. I was stubborn and focused, and I did not want an epidural. I handled it. I cried, a lot. I moaned. I walked around and squeezed K's hands raw. I was numbed with agony. I was going. to. do. this. It was after about 6 hours of excruciating pain that I became delirious and started saying, "I am losing my mind!" over and over again. (This is now a joke around here- but it was so not funny at the time!!!) With my mind slowly and painfully slipping away, they checked me again and I had made it to a whopping 2 centimeters. No, seriously. It had come to the point where we had been there for a long time- the doctors were starting to get concerned because I wasn't making any progress, I was exhausted and the baby needed to come out because my water had been broken for what seemed like days. The midwife offered me a few options and when I heard epidural I said, "Yeah, I want that." Huh? Did that come out of my mouth? Before I could second guess myself, I heard my mom say "I second that..." and K was at my side fervently nodding his head. "You won't be disappointed?" I asked. I had let myself down and really, I didn't care all that much. If I kept on it would be another 24 hours of this and at that point I would be too exhausted to push her out. Bring on the needle.

I had avoided the dreaded hospital gown up until this point. I walked around in a tank and bottomless with no shame. When the nurse told me to put on the gown I asked her if I could just be naked. I hate the gowns. She said sure, but the anesthesiologist might be uncomfortable with that. "Oh Fine." I was sporting an attitude and I didn't care. Stupid gown.

The first epidural was fine, until it completely wore off and I awoke with contractions the size of Texas. Ouch. When dude arrived to fix me back up, I started having serious chest pains. Turns out the epidural had moved out of the spinal cavity and into a vein- Uhhh... WHAT?! Yeah. Dude was trying to paralyze my heart. Thanks. He quickly ripped it out and had to re-do the line. After that I was more than miserable. I guess he was really busy and didn't want to have to come down to fix me again, so he really doped me up. I was so numb it was absolute misery. I hated it. I cried a lot, complained, whimpered and prayed for relief. There was none.

The monitor watching little Cham Cham's heart rate wasn't working accurately, so they had to put an internal monitor on her. (Ouch?) This machine would beep with every heart beat. All. Night. Long. Every 15 minutes or so the little wire that monitored her heart would wander and her heart beat would disappear. "MOM! HER HEART ISN'T BEATING!" all. night. long. Sure enough, a few seconds later it would pick up and beat away. Talk about anxiety.

Little Miss did scare us once. Her heart rate dropped into the 40's for about 4 minutes. All I know is my mom started talking medical talk to the nurse, I was strapped with an oxygen mask and they were flipping me from side to side. The one time K stepped out of the room he got called back in to see chaos. I was totally freaked out. After a few minutes she livened up- She really did not respond well to the Pitocin.

My midwife checked me, told me that I was at 8cm and I should have the baby within 2 hours.

Wahoo! Yipee! Yowza! Call Everyone! She's Coming!

:Shift Change: New Midwife: She checked me and said I was only 5-6cm. --Did I mention this midwife was one of the 2 doctors I said would not deliver my baby? Yeah. She so did.--

I was devastated! I ordered everyone out of the room and cried all by myself like a baby. I just needed a minute.

Longest story in the world, semi-shortened- After a good 12 hours on the epidural I had fully dilated and was ready to start pushing. They told me we could try and push and see where it got us.

5 pushes later, on Sunday August 8th, 2010 at 11:38am, Chamblee was born. And, surprise surprise, I cried. A lot.

It was exhausting and painful and overwhelming and frustrating- and I would do it every single day over and over again. My little girl is the most precious thing in this world to me. Even though she ripped me a new one- quite literally- I am in love with her. There is truly nothing like being a mommy. As my mom put it, "It's like trying to tell someone what a banana tastes like. You can't know unless you've tasted it." Everything changes in a moment. One minute there are two of us, and in an instant, there are 3. It's such a miracle.

Until Next Time,

The Guff