Sunday, March 16, 2008

I'm a Mom now, really.....

So I have not posted anything for a long time, about over a month now. I guess that means I have no more audience for my blog...oh well maybe Kristie will be kind enough to comment.. :) Anyway as the title says: I'm a Mommy for real. I still think it has not sunk in yet. Or maybe it has and I'm just waiting to feel something different than I feel? Don't know.

I had my baby girl on February 10th at 7:08pm. I had one heck of a labor and delivery which I will enthrall all of you with now: My water broke while in the shower on the 9th at about 3pm. I was not sure if it was my water breaking at first. But after I got out and was toweling off every few minutes I gush of clear fluid came out and pretty soon I was walking around the house with a towel between my legs. I called Eric and told him I thought my water broke and I would call him back to come home when I knew for sure. He got a second call about 45 seconds later as right after I got off the phone with him I had a large gush and left a puddle on the floor. I knew then and he was on his way home. I was nervous and excited and lots of other feelings all at once. I felt like crying a few times but did not.

Eric got home and we were waiting for my contractions to start. But they were just the Braxton-Hicks I'd been having. I called my Mom and called the Dr. to see what she wants me to do. I was told to wait until after I ate dinner and then head on up to the hospital. So thats what we did. Still no contractions of note.... We arrived at the hospital at 8:30pm and waited and waited for labor to begin.... I walked the halls and visited with my family. Eric's Mom and Dad came and it was fun to have everyone there. Still no labor pains.... I started to realize that I might have to go on the dreaded Pitocin to move things along. After your water breaks they want to deliver the baby within 24 hours and it was now 8+ hours since my water was confirmed broken. I was getting nervous. Finally at 3am and after no sleep Eric and I decided to get the Pitocin because my Braxton-Hicks were not getting any stronger. I was told to get some sleep but I could not sleep at all!!

On and on they kept upping my Pitocin until I was getting about 17 an hour. It was working according to the monitors but I could not feel the contractions as anything much different than before. This went on and on for hours. Still not much progress was made.

I had them check my cervix at about 11:30am, and was found to be 3 cm. and still 70% effaced. Finally at about 12pm on the 10th I went to the bathroom for the umpteenth time. While reaching for the toilet paper I heard and felt two large 'pops' down low in my belly and felt a huge rush of fluid. My water re-broke!! Wow how crazy was that? (Come to find out later they think that Hannah broke my water high up so it was not really putting me into labor.) I said to my Mom and Eric, who were right outside the bathroom, "hey my water just broke again!" And within about 25 seconds I felt the first real, honest-to-goodness contraction. And let me tell you, this was no picnic. It lasted a long time and once it was over I was nervous as I could be. I told myself to relax just in time for the next one to come on. It hit me so hard that I could barely sit still and keep from moaning my head off. And then the next one hit harder than the other two. They were coming fast and hard with only about 45 seconds to one minute between. I was totally unprepared for the amount of pain. It's crazy painful. Eric and I realized that I had hit "transition" labor without the build-up contractions. In other words I went into the hardest part of labor without any time to learn how to deal with the pain.

I felt at times like I was going crazy with pain. I do not know how I dealt with them except for Eric being there with me. I cried for the first few minutes and then got myself together. I moaned, panted, grunted and over all made lots of noise. At one point I got on the labor ball but that was a no-go and did not help me at all. The rocking chair was the only place I could deal with the contractions. The contractions came in sets of three, the first one was bad, the second was horrible and the third on in the set was the "I'm going out of my mind" kind of pain. Then they would start over. Pretty soon I got so I could anticipate the less painful ones (less painful here is quite relative!! LOL). After about 45 minutes and watching my Mom and Sister crying watching me labor I asked for an epidural because I thought I had still hours and hours of this to go. So the Anaesthesiologist came in and placed the epidural and I was in so much pain...and then about 10 minutes later was still in the same pain. He was concerned about me a little and I was too....I knew somehow that I was going to be one of those people who have complications with it. And I was right!! He kept giving me dose after dose of the meds and I merely had one leg numbed and could pretty much feel everything still. He asked the nurse to check me as he said I might be farther along in my labor than they thought.

Now mind you...this was only about an hour after they checked me and I was 3cm. The nurse checked me again and to every one's surprise I was 9cm!!! No wonder my contractions were so intense!!! My epidural still was not working so he came back in and gave me a second kind of drug for it...still did not work. Back he came and talked me into letting him replace it. So I had a second one placed, meanwhile my IV stopped flowing and so I had to have that redone as well. The second Epidural was slightly more effective though patchy and I could still feel about 85% of my contractions.

At about 2pm I was checked again and declared "ready to push". So I started pushing on my left side. Hannah was way, way up there and I pushed like this for about a half hour with very slow progress. Then I pushed with my legs in the stirrups, still slow progress. They told me to take a break. So I did....for about 25 mins. Suddenly on my side I felt the "urge to push". It felt like I was going to throw up but the energy was forced down instead of up. Thats the best way I can describe it. It was very primal. So again I pushed on my side. Then on my back for a long time. After 2 hours of push with every contraction I told the nurse I "needed to stand up or something to get this going" so she got the squat-bar out and I made slightly faster progress. It felt much better to be squatting!! I pushed for so long I started to get discouraged and felt disappointed with myself, but the nurse kept telling me I was making progress it was just very slow. I was getting so tired.

They called my Dr. in at about 6:15 and I pushed and pushed some more. Finally I knew I was making progress because I started to feel Hannah's head pushing on my perineum. By this time what little help the epidural gave me had worn off completely so I indeed had my un-medicated birth. Ha! When Hannah was crowing I felt a sharp stinging pain and realized I was tearing and it scared me a little. But I had to get her out and finally after my biggest longest push her head was out. I remember opening my eyes and watching my family around my and taking note of their faces. I was a wonderful moment that I treasure. One more push and I delivered the rest of her without my Dr. having to deliver her shoulders on at a time. I felt every inch of her come out of me, it was a most surprising feeling.

They put her on my tummy and I just started sobbing and looking at Eric and he was crying too. I looked at her and she was so awake and alert and didn't hardly cry at all. She made immediate eye contact with me and I was touching her and holding her head and crying more. Eric and I had a moment that I will never forget. I looked at him and we touched each other face at the same time and were saying how much we love each other and he was thanking me for what I had done. It was incredible. Eric started talking to her and she turned her head at the sound of his voice. He cut her cord and took her in his arms and she smiled up at his face while he talked to her. I fell head over heels in love with them both at that moment. Thank you God for this time and our baby.