Thursday, June 14, 2012

A LONG Overdue Update...

Well, seeing as how Mason is 3 months old, I guess I'm way overdue on a blog post. I'm going to do this update in pieces otherwise this post will end up being a novel! So this post will only include the story of Mason's arrival. I’ve been slowly working on this post for weeks now, so here goes...

I have no idea what we did all day on Friday, March 9th. I know Doug was in training and I was working from home, but as far as what we did that evening, I can't remember for the life of me because the following day my entire life changed! I do remember going to bed fairly late that night, and I remember feeling more agitated than I've ever felt in my entire life as I tried to fall asleep. I only snore occasionally - usually if I'm especially tired, but I remember I started to snore as I dozed off and my own snore woke me up, and I was unreasonably angry at myself. I was half asleep and too tired to acknowledge how strange this was at the time. I finally drifted completely into a deep sleep and suddenly, at about 1am, I was startled awake. My brain must have known my water broke, because I didn't feel it. I woke Doug up and said, "I think my water broke... well maybe, well I'm honestly not really sure". I went to the restroom and decided that my water did in fact break. I called and left a message at my doctor’s office and my call was returned within a few minutes. I wanted to stay at home for as long as possible, and she said I was alright to say home for a while. At this point I wasn’t having any contractions.

We all (myself included) thought that I would be completely neurotic with this pregnancy, but surprisingly pregnancy made me a much more laid back person than I normally am. I was just under 2 weeks from my due date and I hadn’t packed my bag yet. Those of you who know me well may have had your jaw just drop! Don’t get me wrong, I knew exactly what I was bringing and it was all washed and set aside, but it was in different places throughout the house and I needed to actually put it into a bag. Both Doug and I knew it would be a very long day, so I told him to try and get some rest, and I would do the same after I got my bag together. Sleep… yea right! It was a nice thought, but we were both filled with adrenalin and excitement!

Doug quickly realized he needed to figure out what to do with his working dog. The dogs don’t eat unless they train, so he needed to get Arnie out to the school. At first I thought since it would be a long while before Mason arrived, it would be okay for him to drive out and drop him off instead of inconveniencing one of his coworkers (it is a 1 hour drive each way). At this point though, the contractions had started. I thought maybe I’d be okay riding out there with Doug. Then at least we’d be together. Doug didn’t want me being that far from the hospital. Doug sent out a mass text and waited. Somehow between all of the excitement he missed the reply. Once he finally realized Steve had responded to his message, he was almost at our house! We were planning to meet him halfway at least. Steve’s timing couldn’t have been better though. Just as he pulled into our driveway I urgently wanted to head to the hospital because the contractions were getting much stronger! A HUGE thanks again to Steve for driving out in the middle of the night to get Arnie so we could focus on having a baby!

We were trying to time the contractions. I remember telling Doug that no one ever mentioned it was rocket science to time one contraction to the next, but for some reason I was having a really hard time distinguishing when one contraction ended and another began. The nurses later told me it was because my water had completely broken so the baby dropped way down putting additional pressure on my back and pelvis. Sometimes your water can break, but not completely. So although there were peaks and valleys with the pain, it never completely went away so I could time it.

We headed to the hospital at around 3am. We live about 4 miles from the hospital and there was no one on the road so we arrived quickly. We were checked in quickly because there was no one waiting and the nurses in the OB triage said it was a very slow night.

I had a goal to wait for the epidural until I was at least 5cm dilated. I was told it could slow labor down, so I wanted to tough it out and wait. Well that quickly went out the window when they checked me and I was only 2cm along and in a lot of pain. The nurses claimed that I was in more pain because my water had completely broken, but I have a feeling they were just trying to make me feel better for being such a wimp! I still had to wait a while because before you get your epidural you have to take a full bag of IV fluids. They gave me my IV and sent me up to the labor and delivery room.

Once I had finished a full bag of fluids, my best friend in the whole wide world came in – the anesthesiologist! I remember early in my pregnancy thinking I might freak out about having a needle in my spine. Nope. Not even a little. At that point the pain makes you realize a needle in your spine is really not a big deal. Within 10 minutes my pain subsided. I still felt a little bit of pressure so I knew when a contraction was coming, but it wasn’t painful.

We were told with the first baby, normally it’s about 1 hour per centimeter but only after you get to 5 centimeters. It could take any amount of time to get to 5. They checked me at around 9am and I was at around 3-4 centimeters, so we couldn’t even count the time at that point. They gave me Pitocin to speed things up and then the waiting began. 

   

Well I guess the Pitocin did its job because the whole 1 hour per centimeter estimation went out the window. It was around noon and they hadn’t checked my progression in a while. I told Doug that I either needed them to up my epidural or maybe I was ready to push. I wasn’t certain because well, I’d never had a baby before! The doc came to check and sure enough, she said I was ready to push! I told her I was getting fairly uncomfortable and asked if we shouldn’t increase my epidural. She said we could if I REALLY wanted, but that she recommended I leave it as is to start and try to push as is. She said I would push better if I could feel the contractions more. I must have been losing my mind at that point… because I agreed to go ahead as is!

At about 12:10pm, Doug posted to facebook, “Ready to push!” He asked my permission first before posting that. I paused for a second and said, “Sure, go ahead!” We have shared every bit of this pregnancy with so many people, why would we stop then?! I can’t imagine seeing that post just sitting at home scrolling through facebook. It makes me laugh!

Now that I’ve gotten you to the pushing part, I’m going to back track a bit for context. So let’s start with my doctor… I opted to use a solo practice because of ALL of the rave reviews I heard about my doctor. Every time any nurse heard who my doctor was, whether it was at the hospital getting an ultrasound or while I was there admitted, they would go on and on about how wonderful she is. Our honest assessment of her was that she was alright. We didn’t understand why everyone raved so enthusiastically, so we assumed that would come to light in the delivery room. Well of course we knew with a solo practice we took the risk of our doctor not being available when we went into labor. The odds were in our favor though. She almost never takes time off, so I would be good to go on a weekday. Plus, she is on call at least once a month on the weekend.

So, as our luck would have it, Mason decided to make his arrival on a Saturday when my doc not only wasn’t on call but was also out of town! So, after months and months of very personal care from one doctor, I was going to have a complete stranger who I’d never met deliver my baby! When my doctor is out, the doctor that fills in for her is one she selectively rotates with, so it still isn’t some random doctor. While I was admitted in the hospital on bed rest a few of her regular rotating doctors came and saw me and I liked all of them but none of them ended up delivering Mason either. I met Dr. Allen for the first time on Mason’s birthday. For whatever reason, not having MY doctor there didn’t faze me. I would have thought that would have made me panic, but it didn’t. Like I said before, pregnancy made me extremely laid back. In all honesty, I ended up liking Dr. Allen more than my regular doc! I plan on switching to her practice for our next baby. Yup, I’m already talking about baby #2

Okay now for the nurses. We had 3 nurses that day. Our first nurse was a very sweet young girl who was very kind and attentive. Unfortunately we didn’t have her long, because she was coming off of the night shift. Then, nurse #2 was only there for 2 hours because it was her scheduled shift but she wanted to go celebrate her son’s birthday and wasn’t able to get someone to cover the first 2 hours. She was also very kind and attentive. Then nurse #3 arrived. She was the one who would be there for Mason’s birth. Her name was Mary. Honestly, if I had to choose whether to have an amazing doctor or amazing nurse, I would pick amazing nurse. The nurse is there with you every step of the way.

Well, I wasn’t lucky with my nurse. She might be (and Doug emphatically agrees) the WORST labor and delivery nurse on the planet. For those who don’t know, when you’re in labor normally the nurse holds one leg and your husband holds the other. For the first half of my delivery I held my own left leg 90% of the time (which also goes to show how little of an epidural I had). The second half of my delivery, the doctor held my leg more than the nurse (which makes her a VERY awesome doc). She paid little to no attention to us at all. Doug was irate. He asked me more than once, “Do you want me to get rid of her, because I will”. For whatever reason, I felt like swapping nurses would cause chaos and I didn’t want any type of chaos during the delivery so I refused.

Okay, so back to the story…

So the doctor confirmed I was ready to push. The charge nurse came in and we did some practice pushes to get me comfortable with the process. She had an incredibly soothing voice and seemed to know exactly what I needed to hear. You could just tell that she earned her position as charge nurse. She was brilliant at what she did. I jokingly told her I might need her to come back if things get crazy because she was so calming. Little did I know how true that would end up being!

So the wonderful charge nurse went on her way to check on her other patients while I was left with my not so wonderful nurse. Doug is convinced my nurse messed up the epidural somehow. At one point she started to fiddle with the machine and kept punching in the same combination of buttons and then would look confused and try again. I found out after Mason was born that most of my friends who had an epidural were unable to feel contractions coming for the most part. They would look at the monitor to see when it registered a contraction and go off of that. Well that was not the case for me. I felt every single contraction before it registered even a blip on the monitor and would let Doug know it was time to push! So, I may not have had a 100% natural birth, but I definitely wasn’t fully medicated either!

You can’t predict how you’ll handle child birth and given the fact that I am an ENORMOUS wimp, both Doug and I assumed I would be the same during labor. Well I surprised us both! It was really a hilarious event, and I do kind of wish I had someone in there filming what I was doing and saying so I could relive it all and laugh!

For whatever reason I kept my eyes shut a lot of the time. I also refused to use bad words. It was strange because I didn’t think in my head, “You shouldn’t swear Kathy” or anything like that. I just didn’t. I would frequently use words in place of cussing though like saying FUDDDDGGGGEEEEEEE or I would say SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. It’s not that I’m some big cusser or anything, but I would’ve given myself a reprieve had I said some naughty words during childbirth lol!

I was also frequently physically violent with Doug HAHA! Okay that was a bit of an exaggeration, but I honestly don’t have an ounce of violence in me. I have been known to say some pretty mean things in the past but never have I been physical towards anyone in my life! During labor though, I would sometimes give Doug the death grip on his chest! I think at one point I even hit him in his chest lol! With every contraction there was supposed to be 3 pushes and sometimes Doug would say you can do just ONE MORE with his very happy and encouraging voice. I would then turn to him with the most evil look imaginable and say NOOOOOOOOOOO. I mentally prepared myself for 3 pushes and I could barely manage that. Asking me to do a 4th one was absolutely out of the question LOL!

Let’s see what else… Doug was supposed to count to 10 for every push. One of the times I started pushing (Doug said I wasn’t actually trying) so in my head I was on 1-2-3- and then Doug started on 1- and I reached up and gripped his chest and yelled out 4-5. I wanted to kill him at that moment… looking back on it - HILARIOUS! I also apologized between contractions to everyone. I’m sorry, I’m such a wimp, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry LOL!

The doctor would come in periodically and check on me, but her real job didn’t start until she knew he was on his way out. For what felt like 300 hours, Doug kept on saying, “He’s RIGHT THERE!” and when he didn’t come out, I decided that everyone was lying to me. I didn’t actually tell anyone that I thought they were lying to me; I just decided it in my head. So, at this point no one could be trusted. The doc would come in and then she would leave. I would tell Doug that if he was really RIGHT THERE she would stay. I even told that to the doc at one point. I was so out of it that the doc had to get my attention and say, “Look Kathy, I’m here, the bed is broken down, I’ve got my mask and gear on, this is happening”. She was cracking up. So was Doug. I was not amused. I was still convinced that she was just doing that as a show to encourage me to keep on pushing through. I remember BEGGING the doctor, just cut him out of me pleassseeeee. She was laughing and saying, “By the time I get you prepped, we get the OR prepped, and everything else ready he will be here!” I didn’t believe her.

So, this all sounds really awful, and it really wasn’t. It was HILARIOUS. It was a very short timeframe that all of this happened. I pushed for a little over 2.5 hours and this was probably the last half hour. The first 2 hours were just the standard pushing.

Okay now, back to the story! Just as I was about to give up, in walks the wonderful charge nurse I told you about before. At some point during my breakdown the doctor fiddled with the epidural machine herself (I think she fixed whatever the bad nurse did) and, although I didn’t know it at the time, looking back on it the epidural obviously started working again. Not only that, the charge nurse was a new person in the room and I trusted her, because remember, the rest of them were all lying to me haha! I remember holding her hand and looking into her eyes as she encouraged me to push. The epidural gave me enough strength to push 4 times and our precious son arrived!

   


March 10, 2012 @ 2:50PM, 6 lb 15 oz, 19 ¾ in and perfect in every way! 

These are obviously not his very first pictures, but Doug and I opted not to post pictures of our sweet son before he was all cleaned up. I of course think all of it is absolutely beautiful, but he’s my son… I’m not sure that everyone reading this really wants to see all that mess LOL!

If you ever want to hear about a great reason to have a regular versus cesarean birth IF you have the choice (some wacko doctors give you the option to have an elective cesarean), my story is the prime reason.  I walked down to the nursery and watched my son's first bath without any help the night I gave birth to him! The recovery isn't always as great as mine, but it's almost always much faster and easier than a cesarean! Plus, I'm the world's biggest wimp and I got through it!


It was an absolutely amazing experience to me. It wasn’t easy, but it also wasn’t at all what I could have ever imagined. He was worth every second of it and more!

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