11/22/14
At around 8:00pm, my water broke spectacularly! It was awful, gross and hilarious. I was running to the bathroom with my hands clutching fruitlessly at my crotch, amniotic fluid pouring everywhere, shouting to Corky (who was nearby), "I'm not peeing! I'm not peeing!" For whatever reason it was more important to me that he know I wasn't suddenly incontinent than it was for me to point out the obvious fact that my water had just broken. I reached the toilet and stood there, dumbfounded. It was like it was raining. Should I pull my pants down? Just sit down with them on? In the end, Corky came up and pants-ed me and I sat down.
While I sat on the toilet waiting for the deluge to stop, Corky ran around trying to get things ready. At some point, while letting the dogs out, he stepped in a huge pile of dog poop in his workboots, which he then proceeded to track all around the house as he went from room to room collecting things. Once he came into the bathroom where I still was and I pointed it out, he spent the next 10 minutes tracking down all his poopy footprints with BioZyme. It was comical to say the least. I stuffed one of Mara's newborn diapers into my underwear (because heaven forbid I'd be prepared for something such as this!) and off we went to the hospital.
We arrived at Labor & Delivery at about 9:30pm. I was hooked up to monitors and the nurse tested to make sure my water had indeed broken (like there was any question??). Once this was confirmed, I was admitted around 11:30pm. They checked my cervix at about midnight and I was only at 1 cm! Because my water had broken a few hours earlier and I wasn't having very many contractions, and the ones I had certainly weren't painful, the doctor on call and the nurse-midwife decided it would be best to start me on pitocin right away to hurry things along. The longer I went without being in active labor, the longer the process would go, and the risk of infection would increase. I agreed and they started pitocin around 12:15am on Sunday, November 23rd.
The contractions started getting stronger almost right away, but they didn't hit like a ton of bricks as I feared they would. It was a gradual increase of pain, as though someone were slowly turning up a pain volume dial on a radio. For the first few hours I was able to get through the contractions either just by breathing or whispering to myself. Things like "I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay." This allowed Corky to get a few hours of sleep. Every half hour they would come in and turn the pitocin higher. By about 4am I was no longer able to get through the contractions quietly and I woke Corky up with my whimpering. I moved from the bed to the chair to the bathroom and back for the next three hours, stopping every minute or so for a contraction. They were awful. I was freezing and shaking and nauseous. At 3:30am they checked my cervix again... still at 1cm. I was ready to cry (but I didn't!)
At 7 o'clock, the nurses changes shifts. My nurse for the day was amazing (I'll call her Shauna because she deserves more than just an initial like I normally put). She reminded me a little of a younger Celine Dion with curly hair. Anyway, at a little after 7 she came in and started talking to me about pain management options. I guess it was clear I was suffering! I had been under the impression that I couldn't get an epidural until I was a certain amount of centimeters dilated, but Shauna told me that wasn't true.
"Tell me about my options," I requested.
"Well," Shauna said. "You can have the IV pain meds which is a fairly popular choice."
"Won't those make me all loopy?"
"Like you've had a few drinks, yeah."
I didn't like that. "I want to be coherent. What else can you do?"
"The epidural," Shauna said, taking my blood pressure.
"When can I get that?" I asked. I could feel another contraction coming and blurted that question out fast before the pain came, so it came out like whencanigetthat?
Shauna waited patiently while I winced my way through the contraction (the spike on the monitor going past the maximum recordable line) and then said the three most lovely words I've ever heard: "whenever you want."
By 8:15 in the morning I had an epidural embedded snugly in my spine. It didn't hurt much, but I've discovered nothing really does when being compared to labor! 8 hours of unmedicated labor really puts things into perspective.
I was much more comfortable after the epidural went in, however I couldn't get out of bed. It was like having noodles for legs. I couldn't even roll over without Shauna's help! Also I had to get a catheter. I tell you there is no such thing as modesty anymore when you're giving birth. I always thought I'd be embarrassed of people looking at my hoo-ha but when you're in that situation you just don't care. Besides, the nurses and doctors see this stuff every day of the week. I just tell myself, well, I'm sure they've seen worse! It helps. :) Shauna checked me again and I was at a 2. Slow progress, but progress nonetheless!
My parents and Corky's mom came to see us throughout the day. The nurses cranked the pitocin up to 12 units per hour. At around 3pm I started feeling the contractions through the epidural. Not too bad at first, just some aching/tightening in the backs of my legs (like where my butt meets my thighs) but soon it increased to actual pain. The epidural was never totally even, I had more feeling in my left side than in my right. I started feeling pain in my left abdomen, near where I assume my ovary is. I labored this way until about 5pm. Sometime during that time, my bestie Alena showed up.
At 4:00 or so Shauna checked me again. I had gone from 2cm to 6cm! No wonder that hurt so much! The anesthesiologist who administered my epidural had to come back in twice to top up my pain meds because I could still feel the contractions so severely. Within the next hour I went from 6cm to 9.5cm. The pressure that came with each contraction was unbearable. I had originally intended to kick Alena out for the pushing part but I was in so much pain I couldn't even think. She ended up staying the whole time. At 5:20, Shauna checked me again and told me I was almost fully dilated - 9.5 cm.
"Good," I said. "Because the pressure is so bad!"
Shauna and another nurse had been watching my temperature for a few hours because I was starting to head towards a fever. Shauna left to go get some antibiotics to hang on my IV because I just broke the 38C fever mark. She was gone 5 minutes and I grabbed Corky's hand during a contraction and said, "Go get Shauna. This baby is coming!" I've never seen him move so fast.
Corky said he went out to the nurses station and found Shauna. "You better come back," he told her. "Kate says the baby's coming."
"Then baby's coming," Shauna said. "Mama always knows."
She came in, checked me and said, "Okay, you're at a 10!"
"I know!" I said, huffing through another contraction. At this point Alena was still in the room. As I mentioned, I didn't originally intend for her to be in there during the actual birth but by this time I did not have the wherewithal to even care that she was there, to say nothing of stringing together a tactful (or even coherent) sentence to ask her to please wait outside. It's just as well because she'd have been waiting out there for 2 hours.
At 5:30pm I began pushing. This part is a bit of a blur for me. I remember Shauna telling me to push towards where I could feel her fingers. Basically, pushing a baby out is like trying to push through the worst case of constipation you can imagine, to the 50th power. I would feel a contraction building, grab my legs, curl my back and touch my chin to my chest and push with all my might for 10 seconds, exhale, deep breath, push again for 10 seconds, repeat until the contraction was over and then do it all over again with the next one. I do remember feeling like I was getting nowhere.
Sometime during the pushing process, my mom showed up. I remember being surprised that nobody had texted her that I was pushing! Shauna asked if I wanted her to come in but I couldn't even think. Finally I said something like, "Fine but she can't look and has to stand by my head where Corky and Alena are." She did.
After some time (could have been 5 minutes, could have been an hour. Time doesn't exist to you in the pushing stage!) Shauna noticed that I was getting exhausted. Now.. if you've ever said, "I'm exhausted" you would be wrong unless you were in the situation of giving birth. There is no exhaustion like this. Anyway, Shauna got me an oxygen mask. I remember being worried that the oxygen would smell funny. It did. Well, the mask is probably actually what smelled funny, but I didn't care. I breathed in that cool oxygen between contractions and it was wonderful. I actually started falling asleep between contractions. I had been awake since 7am the day before and hadn't eaten in like 30 hours. At one point, after a contraction, I looked at Shauna and said, "I can't do this. I don't have it..." but I knew that if you get to the point where you're saying "I can't" it means you're almost there.
Shauna asked me if I wanted a mirror to see baby's head. That idea was gross to me! I did NOT want to see the state of my lady parts. "No thank you," I said. I did, however, touch the baby's head during a push. It felt slimy and after the contraction was over I told Shauna I needed a paper towel to wipe my hand. Everyone laughed.
At 7:00pm the nurses and doctors changed shifts. The OB from the clinic who was at the hospital had been popping in and out throughout the day. Shauna actually stayed 20 minutes past the end of her shift to assist the nurse coming on shift, named "Natalie." At 7:20 Shauna came up and said, "okay, I'm going to hug you now and go home!" I remember thanking her and wishing she wasn't leaving. Natalie told me it wouldn't be long now.
"How long?" I panted.
"By 8:00 I would guess," she answered.
She was right. About 15 minutes later, after a particularly painful contraction and very hard push, Natalie said, "okay... don't push, I need to go get the doctor." As she spoke those words, in walked the doctor.
"Whoa!" said the doctor, and rushed to get ready. I was lying there trying to stave off pushing and I remember thinking the doctor was taking forever to get into her paper gown, gloves, mask, hat, goggles, everything. Finally she was ready.
"Okay," she said, looking like a catcher behind home plate. "I want you to give me the biggest push of your life on the next contraction and hold it for a full 10 seconds."
"'Kay," I huffed.
I pushed. I gave it everything I had. I felt pressure then pain, like burning. I remember thinking, This is it. I'm going to have a baby now.
"Head is out," Dr. K said. "Cord is wrapped once but it's loose, don't worry! Baby is fine. Now next contraction do it again. Big push, okay?"
"Okay," I mumbled into the oxygen mask.
I felt it building.
I let it build.
I waited as long as I could.
"Okay," I grabbed the bed handles. And pushed.
You know in the birth videos you see how the head comes out super slow and then the rest of the body just kind of slips out? That's exactly how it felt! I will never forget as long as I live the feeling of Mara pouring out of me. That's how it felt - she poured out.
She was perfect and mad as hell, screaming her little head off. I was so bummed because Shauna had missed Mara's birth by 18 minutes. She'd been with me all day and I wanted her to be there for the end too.
"Happy birthday!" Natalie said to Mara as they placed her on my chest and wiped her off with a towel and put a little hat on her head.
Hello Mara!
"Hi baby!" I said, rubbing her back.
They took her temperature and found that she was running a 102F fever. No wonder she was screaming! She cried for almost a full hour after birth.
My dad, my mom, my sister, Corky, Alena, her mom and her brother all came in after I was all sewed up (I tore) and covered up and Natalie was doing Mara's stats. I was drinking orange juice in the bed and not really paying attention to what anyone else was doing. I was a little spacey from the trauma of the past 23 hours. Suddenly I heard a great shout and everyone looked at me.
"...What?" I asked, unsure of what I'd missed.
"8 pounds 14 ounces!" Someone exclaimed.
My eyes widened and I bent my arms, flexing my muscles. Everyone cracked up.
They took Mara off to get an IV in her hand so she could have antibiotics too. Corky went with her. We stayed in the hospital until Tuesday night (November 25th) and have been home and doing fine ever since. :)
Oh my God, she is absolutely perfect. That's insane that your water broke on your due date, and you got to make it home for Thanksgiving! I can't stop looking at her pictures. She is so beautiful, and all that hair! Almost 9lbs, that's wonderful! Congrats mama.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting induced this coming up Saturday if my body doesn't do it by itself before then. I'm so happy for you!
XOXO