For those who are interested, here is the long story. I have spared the tmi parts, but here is basically what happened in during the 20 hours between when my water broke and Daniel's birth.
Mike left for work as usual Sunday afternoon, March 11th at around 4 p.m. I was 37, almost 38 weeks. I had been napping most of the afternoon and was having a hard time waking up. I shot up pretty quickly at 5:30 p.m.when I felt/heard a pop and ran to the bathroom to find that my water had broken. I couldn't believe that suddenly it was time to go to the hospital. I called Mike and he came home. We threw some last-minute things in my bag, straightened up the house a bit and headed for the hospital.
I arrived at triage at 6:30 p.m. where they confirmed that yes, my water had broken. After being monitored there for awhile we were admitted to Labor and Delivery. We setted into LDR room 6 and met our nurse, Anne, and Dr. Sporn's covering physician, Dr. Shephard. He came in long enough to introduce himself and express relief that he didn't have to examine me, and that was the last we saw of him. He also explained that I would be left to labor on my own until 5 a.m., and then they’d start pitocin.
So, I spent several extremely boring and pain-free hours sitting in the hospital playing cards with Mike.
Things started picking up around 11 p.m. My contractions were 5-7 minutes apart but got progressively painful as the night wore on. All of the pain was in my back. I got pretty much no sleep, even though I tried to doze in between them.
My nurse came in at 4:45 with the bag of Pitocin and I asked if I could have the epi first. She checked me, and I was 3 cm – far along enough to get it. I was more scared of the epi than anything. I shook through the whole, but it really was no big deal at all. It made my legs and back all warm and fuzzy and the pain went away IMMEDIATELY. I was totally comfortable for the rest of the morning.
Once they got me on the Pitocin the contractions came pretty strong, well, at least according to the monitor, I couldn't feel a thing and was in heaven. Things progressed pretty quickly and by 10 a.m. I was ready to push.
The pushing did NOT go well. It was very painful, even with the epi, and I had a feeling my pushes weren’t doing anything. I had a very bitchy nurse, that didn’t help. My doctor had warned me at my previous two appointments that things didn't look good for getting his big head through there. I don't know what it was supposed to feel like because I've never done it before but I was pretty convinced that I would not be able to get him out.
I started melting down about an hour into it. I was sure I could not do this. I asked if my pushes were doing anything, and the nurse told me that no, beyond my very first push, the baby hadn’t moved one bit. After two hours of pushing, they brought my doctor in to talk to me. He was very “I told you so” about it, which was annoying. He told me the baby was low enough to try the vacuum or I could go straight to a c section. I was not about to do all of that work for nothing so I told him we would try the vacuum and then go to a c section if it didn't work. They wanted to try the vacuum in the operating room so that we would be right there, ready for a c section if needed. The doctor did not seem to think that the vacuum was going to do the trick.
Meanwhile, they had pumped me so full of pain meds during my painful pushing experience that I was now totally numb an unable to feel anything. So, I don't think I pushed effectively enough to make the vacuum work. Everyone said I was doing great but I think they were trying to keep my spirits up, as I was pretty depressed about failing to deliver my baby at that point.
The vacuum did not work, so it was c section time. I have been terrified of this since throughout my pregnancy, but pushing was such an awful experience for me that I welcomed the thought of a c section at that point.
There were what seemed like 20 people in the OR, although I was pretty out of it at this point (awake for more than 24 hours with no food, pumped full of pain meds) and I don't remember a whole lot about it. Mike was right there and held my hand through the whole thing. I didn't feel the incision but felt everything else. I could feel them take him out, it was very strange. Once he was out they showed him to me and then took him to a table to assess him, etc. I started to feel pain, so they gave me more pain meds and I dozed through the rest of the procedure, although I could still feel everything, it just didn't hurt anymore. They did let me hold Daniel, even though I tried to refuse because I was scared of dropping him. A pediatrician came in to look at Daniel because he had a laceration on his head from the vacuum (how guilty do I feel about that???) and his foot is turned at a funny angle. They think that is due to the way he was positioned in the uterus and should fix itself, but his pedi will give us more info after he is examined this morning. Apparently it is nothing to worry about.
After all this was done and they were finishing me up, Mike and Daniel headed over to recovery to have some more nurses assess him (I guess) and to wait for me. New hospital policy is to allow the baby to be with mom in recovery. THANK GOD for that, I can't imagine waiting that eternity (an hour and a half, I think) in recovery without having Daniel to keep me occupied. I remember very little about recovery, just that I wanted to hug the nurse who gave me a clean gown (it had been almost 24 hours at this point).
Keep in mind that we had called all the parents at 9:45 to tell them that we were getting ready to push and that they couldn't be called until we finally got into our room at 4:15. Everything happened so fast once they decided that we were going to the OR and there was no way Mike was leaving me, even for a second, to call anybody. I didn't say that or anything but he would not have left me and I wouldn't have wanted him too. They were all pretty upset, and I knew they would be. I started begging to be allowed to use my cell phone while they were stitching me up.
I don't remember much about that evening, either. Elizabeth, Kathryn and Kelly all came to see us and I appreciated seeing my friends, even though I dozed through most of their visits. My nurse got me up out of bed around 10 p.m., which wasn't as bad as I anticipated. I just have to try and make myself do it again now!
Anyway, we are all 3 happily camped out in our room now. The baby stays in here with me and there is a place for Mike to "sleep" too. Daniel doesn't really like to be put down so there wasn't much sleep for anyone last night, but that is perfectly fine. We are just so happy that he is here!!!!! I think we are going home on Thursday morning, but I will have to ask the doctor about that.
Anyway, that's what happened, I doubt many of you made it to the end but I know that I loved reading other people's birth stories while I was pregnant (and before that too) and thought some people might just be interested. So here it is :)
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