The birthing story....and pictures

Warning, birthing terms such as dilating will be used and at the end of the story a baby is born. If this is too much for you, don't read. You have been warned.

So it all began Sunday. The contractions started at about 8 am. They weren't very consistent. They were painful though. So I just went on with the day. I had a relief society meeting, so I went to that. That went for about two and a half hours! Isn't that crazy!? I wasn't planning on that. So after a ridiculous amount of pain, I finally got home. When I got home the contractions slowed way down. I was having one every hour or so. I was exhausted, so 2:00 pm church was not sounding great. So I was a sinner and slept instead.

The contractions were basically gone when I woke up. So after a whole day of these crappy contractions I figured, more false labor. Jake and I went to bed around 11:00 and all of a sudden they were back and about 20 minutes apart. I finally got to sleep around 12:30am. At 2:00 I woke up with them 10 minutes apart. Then seven minutes. They were really painful too. The worst I think I have ever had. They were long too. None of that 30 seconds stuff they tell you to look for. Since I have had so many false labor moments though, I was not about to go to the hospital and be sent home. So I got in the bath to try and make them go away. When I got out they were 5 minutes apart. Jake looked at me and said, "Are you going to call your mom yet?" I wanted to wait and see if the bath would do anything though. During the third contraction after getting out of the bath I said, "GIVE ME THE PHONE!" lol! I had given in.

My mom was super speedy, which was wonderful. Thank you mom! So we were off to the hospital around 3:30. When we got there I must have looked horrible. You have to check in at the Emergency room and then go up to Labor and Delivery. The check in nurse looked at me and said, "Oh she is about ready to go!" and started rushing around getting Jake all the paperwork. After changing and getting the monitors on they finally checked me. It was about 4:00. The nurse says, "You are an 8." My mouth dropped and I was like, "what?!" Then the nurse said, "I'm going to get someone else so we can make sure." The second nurse comes in and says, "Oh yeah. She's an 8, almost a 9, with bulging waters." Immediately the tears kicked in. I wanted anesthesia and they knew it. The nurse then told me that they couldn't give me anything either because at this point the drugs could harm the baby. All of a sudden the nurses were in a frenzy. One was calling the anesthesiologist and the doctor. One was setting up the birthing table with all the stuff for the doctor. One said, "I don't have all her paperwork done yet" (the bazillion questions they ask about health history and stuff like that). The other one said, "I don't care about that right now, we need to get the table set up!" And the whole time I am looking through tears saying, "I don't want to do this naturally!"

The anesthesiologist got there fast and said I couldn't have the epidural because it takes too long to kick in, but I could have something else (I can't remember what it is called) and it would stop the pain from the contractions pretty much instantly, but I wouldn't be completely numb. The contractions were really bad so I said give it to me. After that I was happier, but remember not completely numb. The baby's heart rate kept dropping so they were flipping me from side to side and forcing me to be on oxygen. The doctor came in and checked me at like 4:30 and said, "she's complete." He broke my water. My blood pressure dropped once and they had to give me something to bring it back up. Then we were on our way........... or that is how it was supposed to go. He then said, "his head isn't down." So I pushed and tried to get his head down. The doctor figured out that it was because the baby was "sunny side up," face up instead of face down. He then preceded to try and turn him while I pushed at contractions. I was not numb. It was more painful than the contractions. It went on for a long time. And it got worse and worse. Eventually, I was squeezing Jake's hand and screaming out in pain.

Finally the anesthesiologist comes in and says, "should I have the OR prepped?" So my anxiety and trauma came back and I was again in tears, shaking my head no. The doctor said, "No. She has got to have an epidural." So I got the epidural and then laid in bed for 30 minutes waiting for it to kick in. After that, I pushed down, the doctor turned the baby, and it was easy going from there. Two sets of pushing later, he was born at 6:45 am. And boy was he beautiful. He was the most beat up of my three boys. His head had red marks all over it and his nose was smashed, but he had a head full of hair. That is the first thing I saw. They didn't stick him on my stomach like they usually do because they wanted to make sure he was okay. So all I really saw at first was them whisking him away. The first thing I said was, "Is that his hair?" He has a lot more than our other two boys did.

After a while, I realized more and more how mutilated, exposed, and violated I felt. So I pretty much put this up as my worst delivery ever. With all the anxiety of delivering naturally and having a c-section, this was an extremely trying experience. It went so fast, but it was so hard and painful. I am all about letting my kids come when they want, or when my body wants, and going into labor naturally. After this experience, I am seriously considering induction if there is a next. :) Or I should at least be less paranoid about being sent home and go in earlier.

I must say though, I had wonderful nurses and I loved my anesthesiologist! She was worth every penny! She stayed in the room with me the whole time practically to make sure the baby and I were going to be okay (heart rate and blood pressure). Through all my not drugged contractions, the nurse kept saying, "you are doing really good!"