The Good & The Ugly

Because, thankfully, there was no bad. For me at least, a not so wonderful pregnancy meant I got a wonderful birth. I loved every second of it. My husband still teases me about smiling and laughing between pushes.

First feed :)

I am going to throw a disclaimer in here now though. I said the good and the ugly for a reason. I’m not going to hold back and if you don’t want to know the disgusting things about giving birth that no one talks about, I’d stop here. Especially if you’ve never witnessed a live birth, are of the male variety, or are even a little squeamish.

Now that I scared all the wimps away :), this is my birth story. Yes, it’s taken me 5 1/2 months to write. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to write it but since I’ve started the blog… I may as well bite the bullet. My due date was 10/30/2010 but I really wanted a 10/10/10 baby. I kept telling hubby we were going to have him on 10/10/10 but since I wasn’t due for 21 more days, I don’t think he quite believed me Saturday night (10/9) when I told him I was going to have the baby the next day.

But at about 6pm that Saturday night I started feeling a little off. By off I mean I had diarrhea. My body was kind enough to expel pretty much everything it had in it over the course of the night. I tried going to bed but I was so uncomfortable and my stomach was cramping so bad. I tried taking a bath but I had to keep getting out to use the toilet. I called my mom several times. I debated on calling the doctor’s office. I tried to time contractions. I took a really long shower. I tried to be quiet so hubby could sleep. By this point in my pregnancy he was used to my pregnancy induced insomnia so I still don’t think he had any idea that I was in labor.

By 3 am I was checking and double checking the hospital bag, just in case. I timed contractions. I took another shower. I think I blow dried my hair. At 4am I went to the bathroom and when I wiped it was a ton of bright red blood. Even though logically I knew I had been in early labor for the last 10 hours, I was still only 37 weeks and 1 day and the blood freaked me out. I yelled for hubby. I called my OB’s office. They told me to go ahead and head to the hospital. So we let the dogs out, loaded up the car, and left at about 5am. The hospital is an hour from home so of course I had to stop at QT about halfway there and pee and get a slurpee.

We got to the hospital just a few minutes before 6am. The main doors weren’t open yet so we had to go in through the ER. They wheeled me up to L&D in a wheelchair even though I totally could have walked. They got us all checked in and then they checked me. I was only dilated to a 3 (I had been a 2 for a couple of weeks). So they had us hang out and said they would come back and check in a little bit. I was already feeling the contractions pretty hard and I was only at a friggin’ 3. So much for my mindset that I would get an epidural, “if I needed one.” HA!

Please excuse the mess… I had already been in labor for like 15 hours

My nurse had just come on to her shift (6am – 6pm) and she was 28 weeks pregnant herself. She was such a sweetheart. She fibbed a little to the OB that I was further along than I actually was so that I could get admitted and we wouldn’t have to drive an hour home just to head back in another hour. She also let me take off the monitors and walk the hallways to try and progress a little bit. There were two students there with us too.

I kept my mom on standby until they figured out if they were going to admit us or not (she was going to have to buy a plane ticket  from Chicago) and made my seester wait before she started the 4 hour drive from Tulsa. But hubby’s mom came up to the hospital to hang out with us. It was nice because we were both so nervous and she had already been through it 4 times as a mom and once as a grandma.

When they finally decided to admit me they gave me an epidural right away- yay epidural! They had to give me a foley (catheter) after the epidural and the nurse asked if it was okay if the students did it. I said hell yeah since I couldn’t feel a thing. I gave my mom and sister the go ahead to head down and hubby gave his dad and stepmom the go ahead to come up to the hospital. They showed up in all their Texas Rangers gear since the Rangers were in the World Series and playing that day. They also brought the gnome a monster stuffed animal that I hung on to through my entire labor.

After the epidural I was a happy camper. Although the epidural pump made this noise that sounded like a sick cat. Every time it went “mew,” I looked around for the cat and then realized what it was and started cracking up. But I was having a baby! The Cowboys game started, my seester showed up, and then my labor stalled. The on call doctor from my OB’s office (who was wearing jean shorts and a Rangers shirt) broke my water and started me on pitocin at 5pm. That made things fly. Less than an hour later I was at a 10 and ready to push. And just to spite hubby, I made sure to time it for the middle of the Cowboys game, haha!

Mom-in-law, dad-in-law, and stepmom-in-law all vacated the room so it was just hubby, seester, the nurse, two students, and myself. It was definitely interesting. They wanted me to push three times during each contraction but my contractions were still like 2 -3 minutes apart. And I couldn’t feel them at all because of the epidural. Speaking of that, I hear all the time that they have to turn the epi down so you can “feel” to push. I am so glad my doctor wasn’t a sadist. They didn’t turn down my epidural and I didn’t feel a thing but I pushed like a champ. Anyway, the nurse and everyone would be watching the monitor and tell me when to push. So I’d push like I was pooping (hey that’s what you gotta do!) three times and then we’d stop and chat and two or three minutes later we would do it again. At some point the doctor came in and after a total of 5 contractions and 15 pushes – there was a baby plopped on my chest!

Still all gooey

“I don’t know about this, mom”

I didn’t even poop on the table! Yes, I was incredibly worried about that. But like I said before, my body was kind enough to empty itself completely. My other worry, that I would be cut or tear and need stitches also wasn’t an issue. Little babies rock!

While I delivered the placenta (felt that more than the gnome, it had to be bigger but I forgot to ask to see it) they weighed him and did his footprints and stuff. 5lbs, 8oz & 21 1/2 inches long. He got 9s on his apgars even though he was early and an itty bitty guy. They brought him right back over to me so I could feed him and he latched right on like a champ!

I have an entire novel to write about the hospital stay too but I said this was the birth story so I will save the novel for another day.

Have you put your birth story into words? Post a link to it in the comments! And, if ya like me, then like me on facebook!