On Sunday at about noon I started feeling crampy, but that wasn't really any different than any other day, so I took a nap. When I woke up I still felt a little off, but I didn't want to just sit at home. Mike and I went to the mall to get some frozen yogurt and walk around a bit, since walking is supposed to be some magical labor inducer. At around 6 we went to Old Chicago for dinner like we did every week and I started to feel really crampy. At home Mike rubbed my back and I took a bath, hoping that would help. I really wanted to sleep that night so I could go to work the next day without feeling exhausted. At ten o'clock I told Mike I had to go to bed so I went upstairs to bed. About two hours later I was up again. The cramps had increased and laying down made them worse. I came downstairs where I sat on a ball, walked around, reclined, anything to alleviate them but everything made them worse. I couldn't really tell if I was having contractions or not. Ever since the baby dropped it was harder for me to feel them even though I knew I was having timeable contractions from the non-stress test results we got earlier from the doctor.
At about 1:30 I called Amy to ask her about them. I could still breath through them and walk, and to be honest I just felt like I was in a lot of pain, not really labor. I couldn't time anything. When I did I got results that varied in time from two minutes to five minutes. Amy said she was coming over to check how things were going. I woke Mike up and told him Amy was on her way and that he should take Ella, our dog, to his parent's house just in case. I still didn't think I was having a baby. Amy came over and told me I was definitely in labor and she could measure my contractions by feeling my stomach. My water hadn't broken so she did an internal exam to check and I was dilated to a 3 and 70% effaced. She had a hard time measuring my cervix though because it was very posterior and the exam was quite painful. After that things sped up, I started to feel more intense pain and I was having a hard time dealing with it. We decided to go to the hospital because I was in so much pain and my mom's labor had been so short.
The car ride was awful. Sitting up in a car was so painful and those 20 minutes were pretty intense. When we got to the hospital I continued to have contractions as we walked in. I went to labor and delivery and they checked me in. The nurse did an internal exam and said I was a 2 and 80% effaced. Amy read the fear on my face that the results were not better, and in fact worse than they were. She explained that since my cervix was so far posterior, it would be easy to read as less dilated if they were trying to not cause me pain. They offered to let me labor at the hospital or go home. If they had asked me when I wasn't in labor what I would have chosen I would have gone home, but there was no way I was getting in the car again, so we stayed. We walked the halls and I took a bath (sort of, I knelt in the shower while Mike and Amy sprayed me with warm water. It is the only thing that helped, but I was so cold since most of me was just exposed. The pain was getting more intense and Amy told me I needed to prepared for it to last for at least a few more hours and get a lot more intense. I said I wanted to reevaluate my desire for a med-free birth. Amy was very clear with and said it didn't matter right then, I couldn't have an epidural anyway since I wasn't in "active labor" at only 2 cm and we would talk about it later. I was so tired. I laid on the couch for about 20 minutes and tried to sleep between contraction, but they were awful. I got sick and threw up quite a bit. By then it was around 4 or 5 am and I was hungry and tired and still didn't feel like I was in labor. I felt NOTHING in my stomach area. Not a contraction, or a tightening, all I felt was the baby moving and the pain in my back. They checked me again and I had progressed a little bit, but not much. I walked around some more and asked Amy numerous times if I was actually in labor, I was so scared they were going to send me home.
I knew I had to relax my pelvic muscles for labor to progress, and I tried, but I just couldn't. During contractions I would sway, breathe, relax my body, but my pelvis just wasn't going to relax. Since we had success with the bath before I got back into and had the worst contraction ever. I was in tears and I just felt so defeated. I couldn't relax, I couldn't sleep, I was so hungry and I was terrified of what was coming. Labor was nothing like I expected or prepared for: I had tons of techniques to alleviate abdominal pain, and a lot of that was dependent on the pain coming and going, that a contraction would suck, but then subside. But this didn't. It was like I had been having a steadily growing giant contraction since dinner. I told Amy and Mike I wanted an epidural. Both of them asked me if I wanted to wait and I told them no, so I got out of the tub and prepared to let go of the natural birth I wanted so badly. So at 6:45, right before the change of shift, I got an epidural.
It was honestly the best feeling in the world. I wouldn't want to get one if I wasn't in intense pain because going from the worse pain in the world to complete numbness was amazing. Instantly I was so relieved, I had no idea I would feel like that, it made it a lot easier to come to terms with needing one because it was just so amazing. However, I keep having pain in one part of my back, which I guess is pretty normal and called a "window". Amy left to go take care of her own kids and gave me instructions to sleep, that is why I got the epidural and we all knew I would face a longer pushing session because of the epidural. I was still really scared that I would end up with a c-section because of the epidural, that it would slow the progress of my labor and I wouldn't progress. I told the nurses about the pain, and the anesthesiologist came in to give me a new epidural. They put it in lower and the window went away. My actual doctor was then on rotation in the ward which made me feel so much better. He came in, talked to me about my birth plan and reassured me that the epidural hadn't ruined everything, I could still have some of the items I wanted, plus he would deliver my baby! Mike and I both fell asleep after calling my mom and asking her to come.
When I woke up they checked me again and I had made great progress. The epidural hadn't slowed anything down and I was dilating about 1cm every hour! It was the best news ever. I tried to sleep more and was pretty successful. Finally, around 2:00 I was dilated to 9.5--I was feeling good, but I was STARVING. I had thrown up quite a lot and was limited to ice chips. I am not sure I have ever felt so thirsty before in my life. The doctor told me I would have a baby before he left at five and he checked the baby, estimating him again at right around 8 pounds. The nurse asked if I wanted to start pushing and I said I would like to labor down for an hour or until I felt pressure since the doctor told me I would probably need to push for about 1.5 hours, so I had plenty of time. An hour later I still felt no pressure, so we agreed to lessen the epidural to increase feeling. At around 4:00 I still felt nothing and the doctor came to talk to me about not delivering my baby. He reassured me about the new doctor that was coming on, who he had worked with in Boulder and trusted. I really like my doctor, so I completely trusted his opinion. I was disappointed, but we both agreed waiting to feel pressure was important in shortening my pushing.
Finally, around 6:00 I felt pressure and wanted to start pushing. Amy had returned and we all prepped for at least an hour of pushing. The contractions were hurting pretty bad at this point and I really wanted to press the button on the epidural to get drugs, but when I started pushing the pain went away. Again, I was totally taken by surprise in labor. I expected pushing to hurt like hell, but it didn't at all, it alleviated all of the pain of the contractions. I sort of liked it even. It took me a while to learn how to push (I blame the epi, but I am not sure). Every 20 minutes I would switch positions. After about an hour I was getting tired, but not too bad, just really thirsty. They checked my temperature and I was developing a fever. At the time I really didn't think that mattered at all, and thought it was just one of those things that they check in the hospital over and over for no reason.
The doctor came in and checked the baby. That was exceptionally painful. X was in +2 position and needed to make it to +5--so three more centimeters. The doctor didn't want to try a vacuum or forceps because he wasn't far enough out. X looked good on the monitors, but the doctor was really concerned about my fever and told me I had a uterine infection from my water breaking so much earlier that day. He told me that normally they only allow women to push for 2 hours, but since the baby looked so good he would continue to let me try for another hour, but at the point, if no progress was made, we would need to do a c-section and possibly quickly due to the infection. I had already been pushing for 2 hours and had made very little progress. Finally getting to hold him. They recommended pitocin and I agreed since the whole reason I wanted to avoid pitocin was to avoid being in bed all day, and that was already done. The pitocin increased my contractions so that I had more opportunities to push. I continued to push for another hour and half, and he never made it out. He started to show signs of distress and I was put on oxygen to help him and me. Towards the end I started to feel super stressed and sick, knowing I would have a c-section if I didn't get him out soon. Everyone in the room was working so hard, and he just wouldn't move.
The doctor came in to check and there was no progress. He told me I needed a c-section because the baby was being exposed to the infection and I had made no progress. Pushing as hard as I could every two minutes for an hour and half had done nothing but expose my baby to an infection, exhaust me and stress both of our bodies. I started crying as all of the nurses and doctors got ready for surgery.
We requested that Amy and Mike go with me to surgery, even though only one person is normally allowed. The anesthesiologist agreed (I think it helped that Amy is a medical professional and worked with some of them years ago). They took me alone to the room and made me move from one bed to the other. I thought I could. I couldn't. It was so hard to move my feet. Then they put up the screen and gave me morphine. I started to panic, but the anesthesiologist talked me through it and soon enough Mike and Amy were with me. I was so cold and so numb and so scared. Soon I felt lots of tugging and pulling. I was so scared that something was going to go wrong, but then the baby was out and was crying. I was so out of it. I know Mike went to cut the cord because I have pics, but I don't remember. Hearing him cry was the most amazing moment of my life and Amy took a few quick pics and brought them to me so I could see him. Finally they brought me my baby. I was shaking so hard from the morphine I had a hard time reaching over to him. I wanted to hold him so badly, but they took him to the nursery. Amy stayed with me while they finished the surgery. I remember them talking about dancing hamsters. Yes, I am sure.
Finally they took me to post op where X and Mike. I was still shaking so bad which terrified me. I wish I would have prepped better for a c-section so that I would have known what to expect. The shaking is normal, but it was so scary and awful because I couldn't hold X. I think someone helped me breastfeed him, but I am not sure. My mom and Amy left to go home since it was already past midnight. Finally, after a bath and tests and who knows what else, I got to take him in a wheel chair to our new room where we stayed until Friday, learning how to breastfeed and dealing with all the complications.
I had a ton of antibiotics, but X was okay. He had some bruising on his head from where I tried to push and his ear was swollen and folded over pretty bad, but that was all. He was just gigantic and no one expected that. 9 pounds, 7 ounces is a big baby. He lost 8% of his birth weight, but he gained it back pretty fast. The surgery was crazy painful and I found it really helpful that Mike had already had abdominal surgeries so he could help me. He knew what to expect. We shared time with the baby, mostly because if I held him he always wanted to eat, and I didn't have anything to feed him. With Mike he was calmer.
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