On Monday, March 1st, I was at the library down the street from my house, working on my research project, when I started feeling mild cramping. It was 11:20 when I started timing them and I realized they were five minutes apart, almost exactly each time. These, combined with spotting, had me worried, so I asked a couple of friends for advice and then called my doctor's office. The doctor's office told me to go straight to the hospital if I wanted, or I could wait and see the on-call doctor that afternoon (my doctor doesn't work on Mondays). I thought it would be a little extreme to drive 1/2 hour to the hospital when there was probably no need, so I waited until the appointment.
Dr. Engstrom saw me. She told me I was dilated to 2 cm and could easily be stretched to 3 cm. "You're going to have this baby in the next 24 hours," she told me. I was completely shocked, to say the least. Oliver wasn't due for 12 more days and I wasn't at all ready for him to come. Luckily, I had thrown together a hospital bag of stuff right before my appointment. Still, I was really not ready for this baby to come. I still had stuff to do, things to buy, papers to write, presentations to prepare. I still had to finish training my replacement at work (who was feeling very uneasy about me leaving). I didn't have a nursing bra, a diaper bag, comfy underwear for the hospital...I couldn't really be in labor. She told me to go to the hospital when my contractions were 2 minutes apart, if I couldn't walk or talk through the pain, or if my water broke.
I called Wendel and he said he would leave work early. I told him not to worry about it - it would probably take me all night, at least, to get to the point where we needed to go to the hospital. He left anyway.
I left the doctor's office and went straight to work. I did a crash-course training with Ann, who was really freaking out. (I felt bad leaving her so unprepared, but at least I wrote out a very detailed description of my job responsibilities for her.) I kept having the contractions five minutes apart and would have to pause during the training to let them pass. It was crazy. Then I had things to wrap up at work before I could leave, so I stayed later to finish those. Again, I felt so unprepared, so unorganized, so last-minute. (If you saw The Office last week, this story is very similar to that one in that I think I was in denial about being in labor because 1. I just had so much going on and 2. I was not ready to face the labor and delivery. I really hadn't prepared myself mentally with all that I had going on in my life.)
I went home and took a bath to help relieve the pain from the contractions, which were only getting more intense. Then Wendel and I went to Quizno's for dinner because I knew that once I was admitted to the hospital, I wouldn't be able to eat anything and I didn't want to be in labor and be hungry. I had to pause every 3-5 minutes to get through contractions and then would eat quickly in between. We kept a record of the frequency. They were regular but not down to 2 minutes apart, so we didn't go to the hospital. Instead we went to Khols and looked for a diaper bag and nursing bra (they had neither - annoying). I was now having difficulty walking through the contractions. They were really painful, but I have a low pain tolerance, so I figured I was just being a wimp. The woman working at the customer service desk saw me walk out of the bathroom and asked me how dilated I was. This surprised me that she knew I was dilated at all but I guess she could tell I was in labor (though I didn't have any contractions in front of her).
After Khols, I was in a lot of pain, but I didn't want to get to the hospital too soon, so we waited a little longer. We watched How I Met Your Mother and then Chuck, pausing the shows every few minutes while I grasped Wendel's arm in pain. After Chuck, I told him I really couldn't walk or talk through the contractions, and even though they weren't down to two minutes, we should go to the hospital. We finally left at that point.
Every bump in the road is excruciating while you're having contractions. We parked in the parking lot and walked to the hospital. We both agreed that the hospital should offer wheel chairs that you can check out (or pay for) in the parking lot, like those little carts you can get at the airport to carry your stuff. It was a long walk with many contractions in between. (We later learned that there is a free valet service for this purpose but we had just been at the hospital the day before for a tour and they only told us about the parking lot, not the valet service, so we had no idea).
So we finally made it into the birth center and checked in. Triage was completely full, so they had us wait in the lobby. The pain was very intense and I had to lean over a chair whenever a contraction came to get through it. It was at this point that my water broke, right there in the lobby (at least, I was initially told that this was my water that broke but then later there was more, so I'm not sure what that was all about). Once that happened, they sent me straight to a Labor and Delivery room and skipped Triage all together.
The nurse checked me and told me I was at
9 cm. I couldn't believe it! My first thought was that I waited too long to have the epidural. The resident doctor came in (btw, I honestly thought Dr. Herner would be delivering him if she was in town, even if it was the middle of the night. I guess I didn't realize that that would only be the case if she was on call) and the nurse told her I was at 9 cm. I told her I really wanted the epidural and asked if there was any way I could still have it. She told me that she technically shouldn't give it to me at this point but that since she hadn't checked me herself to confirm 9 cm, she would just let me have one anyway. (
Thank you, thank you, thank you.) The Anesthesiologist came in and administered the epidural. I was so nervous that I would have a contraction in the middle of it and be paralyzed or something, but it went really smoothly. Wendel put his arms around me during the procedure, and honestly it was the least painful part of the entire experience. I felt a little prick and that was it. (The IV was another story, especially since the first time the nurse tried, my vein rolled and she had to do it on the other arm instead.)
A few minutes later, the nurse asked me, "How was that contraction?" "I had a contraction?!?" I was completely surprised, since I hadn't felt anything. The epidural was awesome! For the next couple of hours, I was pain-free and loving it. I even got online and updated my facebook status to say that I was in labor. Wendel laid down on the couch and took a little nap (he had only had a few hours of sleep over the past two nights, trying to get as much work done as he could before the baby came). The nurse put in a catheter (which was a little uncomfortable but not painful).
I had heard that with an epidural, it's pretty pain-free, so the contractions I felt would be the most painful part of the labor. Nice! Now that those were behind me, I felt relaxed and confident that I could do this.
Then I started feeling the contractions again. I was confused. I felt my leg and it wasn't numb at all. I could feel everything. "The epidural is wearing off," I told the nurse. "Can you give me more?" She told me she would up the dosage a little. I couldn't tell a difference. Shortly after, I felt an overwhelming urge to go to the bathroom. The nurse told me it was time to push. "I need more of the epidural," I told her. "We can't give you any more," she told me. I wasn't prepared to have this baby without any drugs. That may sound awful, but I was planning on having an epidural throughout my entire pregnancy and I really wasn't sure I could do this without one. I tried to get in the mindset of doing this without drugs.
Women do this all the time, I told myself.
The pain won't last forever. You can do this. I pushed for about an hour. It was a pretty intense experience. Very raw emotions. I'll leave it at that. I will say that everyone says you forget the pain and that is how you are able to have more children. I'm not sure I will forget the pain. Hearing his little cry was such a relief - knowing that he was breathing and okay, that the pain I went through helped bring him into this world. It is unlike anything I've ever experienced.
[Side note: My worst fear about the experience was the tearing and the stitching, which did happen. When the doctors were stitching me up after, they only numbed part of me, so I could feel the needle for part of it. I told them this and they didn't seem to care but just kept going. Glad that's over! The recovery is painful too, which I had no idea that it would be. (No one ever talks about that part.)]
It's true what everyone says though: It's worth the pain and everything else you go through to bring your child into this world. I'm grateful I had that opportunity. Also, I can't imagine doing this without Wendel's support. I really needed him standing right there by me, holding my hand and encouraging me. I was so annoyed with the doctors and nurses (who kept promising me that if I pushed just one more time, it would be the last time) and even got annoyed with him one time, but I was so grateful that he was there. I can't imagine going through labor and delivering a child alone.
And let me just say, I was happy I had that sandwich from Quizno's. I was so hungry after he was born and the kitchen didn't open until 7:00. Wendel found some pudding for me (and some water...those ice chips just weren't enough...it was so hot in that room while I was in labor).
After Oliver was born (though he wasn't Oliver yet...we couldn't decide on a name until after we checked out of the hospital and he was four days old), we were told that the Birth Center was so busy that there weren't enough Labor and Delivery rooms open so they gave us the option to move to a very small room in Pediatrics for a $50 Babies R Us gift card, or to move to another large room in Pediatrics without the gift card. We also could have stayed in our room but I would've felt badly about that since there were people waiting (and it was so awful for me to wait the short time in the lobby). We ended up taking the small room for the gift card. It was quite a difference from the nice big room in the Birth Center. It actually looked like a dorm room from the 70s. Instead of a pull-out bed, there was a chair for Wendel to sleep on. Oliver's little crib barely fit next to my bed. But we got through the night (without much sleep).
The next day we didn't get much sleep either, as there was always something going on (a hearing test, a PKU test, he had his circumcision, someone came around to offer photos of him, someone gave us paperwork for the birth certificate, someone checked in to see how the epidural went, the nurse kept coming in for vitals, etc.)
But he is here! I still can't believe that his due date is tomorrow. That is so crazy! We're so grateful for our healthy, beautiful baby boy. He is such a blessing to us.
