We finally decided to try to go to sleep around 10:30 or so, so that if it were to keep going we would get some sleep. I think I slept 45 minutes. After a while, I would wake up with each contraction every few minutes....watching the time pass. By 1 a.m. I could not stand it anymore. I was exhausted but I just couldn't rest. I woke my husband up and moved into the living room. This is where the fun began.
I found that I was having back labor...a lot of it. I did my pelvic rocks from class every freakin day, but NO! Back labor. I could handle it for the most part but I found I could hug my exercise ball and rock with my contractions to help the pain out. Trying to relax and breathe while hugging a giant plastic ball means that you drool all down it, FYI. No one tells you that. It was only embarrassing the first few times. Ryan was bringing me water, getting me food, and fighting sleep in between contractions. Before long the sun was up and things just kept trolling along.
Around 1 pm, we were exhausted. Contractions were 3 to 5 minutes apart. They were staying at around 3, but every once in a while would be at 5. Bath after bath, and lap after lap around our street, I was starting to wonder what the deal was. Around 2, Ryan and I laid down on the couch. He was helping me go through contractions and in between I was letting my eyes close-if even for a minute. I dosed off and I was so tired that I had already started to dream...sort of. Suddenly I sat up-the fastest I'd sat up since being about 20 weeks pregnant I think-and I thought I had peed suddenly. I heard that's pretty much what water breaking feels like so I got up. The joys of Motherhood! (This may get to be TMI but ...oh well) When I went to the bathroom there was only a small about of fluid on my underwear, which was confusing. I walked around for a minute and nothing really happened. No more fluid and nothing really changed with my contractions. Finally, we decided we should probably go get checked out just in case.
So, by this point, we're looking at, what, 16 hours or so? Nice. Anyways, we get checked in to the hospital and they bring us through the ER to some kind of 'back entrance' up into Labor and Delivery. The nurse we had was so nice. She was gentle and patient and she had a great sense of humor. We were put in the very room we toured in just a few weeks before. We went over our birth plan which they already had in our paperwork-our doctor is awesome-and everything was fine. Everyone was really excited to have a surprise baby once we told them we didn't know the gender! So, the on-call doctor came in. I knew that my doctor was out of town but I knew who was on call from the office and the name of person who was supposed to deliver Baby G. He checked me and it turned out that I was 3 cm dilated and partially effaced. Which to me meant I had been 3 cm dilated for a week and why the heck have I been in labor for this long if I'm not freakin dilating?! It was frustrating. He said that he wasn't going to admit me yet but he wanted to have us there for about an hour just to see how I was progressing. An hour and a half later, a tiny bit more effaced...still at 3. He decides to let us stay a while longer-looking back I'm wondering if he had an idea of what was coming cuz I'm not sure why he let us stay without being admitted-just to see if I progress any more. Also, the nurse started to notice I was running a fever. Another hour or two and nothing.
Some time in the middle of this, there was a shift change and we got another nurse. This one was...odd. She was nice but she had no sense of humor and I just didn't feel like she was on my side. Not really anyway.
While he's checking me he asked, "Did you say your water broke? Or you don't know?" We reminded him that we weren't sure and he said it appeared that my bag of water was still intact but he's noticing a lot of fluid when he checks me. He tries to run a test to see whether I have amniotic fluid present but it is inconclusive because there's too much blood all up in there. Around this time they say my fever is getting higher. They keep an eye on things for a little while longer when the doctor finally says that he's worried I have ruptured and its making my fever get high. He also suspects that my fluid levels mixed with the rupture and ..something else, I forgot, is causing my contractions to be unproductive. He said that if my fever got to a certain point, he would have to do a C-Section. "I want to be as close to your plan as possible, but if it gets much higher your options will be taken away and I don't want you to have a c-section." He wants to admit us but wants to break my water and start Pitocen to get labor consistently going. He gives us time to think it over. Ryan and I are freaking out! What's going on? This isn't supposed to happen. This isn't what we wanted! I am in tears. Ryan's in tears. He asked the nurse to take my temperature again and it was already higher. "What do we do, Ryan? I don't know what to do," I said. "Let's just have a healthy baby, ok," he said. The doctor came back in after a while. Ryan spoke to him the most since, y'know, LABOR had me busy. He told the doctor that we wanted the minimal amount of Pitocen. That we didn't want to use but the smallest possible amount and that that's what our doctor was going to do at our induction anyway.
At this point, we're looking at, I think 22 hours of this. I felt like I was going to be pregnant forever and I was just...exhausted. I wasn't handling my contractions as well anymore, either. My birth isn't going how I imagined it, I'm tired, and I don't want to be pregnant anymore. Ryan had been a life saver in the hospital by pushing on my back off-setting the back labor pains. Even though we had the system down pretty well for my contractions I was really worn down.
The doctor was going over the 'new plan' and he mentioned that if I did decide I wanted pain meds or something, to just let them know. I said, "Well, if we have to start Pit I'm really worried I'm not going to handle it." He asked about the epidural. I said that I didn't think it would work, but its like this other person popped out and was all, like, TRY IT!
As soon as we agreed to the new plan, I felt ok about it. But as soon as I agreed to the epidural it was as though everyone was in stand by and pouncing. I was strapped to the bed with so many monitors and cords. They had to fit me with an IV for the Pitocen, and since I was getting the epidural too they had to monitor the baby the whole time now. I said, "How the heck am I supposed to pee?" "Oh, I have to put a catheter in." I cried. I felt like I made a mistake. I looked at my husband hoping he would talk me out of something but everything was going so fast. They tried the epidural and it didn't work. They tried again...it didn't work. Fine. What a waste of effort. Oh, but she still says I have to have the catheter. Great! She did that think with no pain meds. It was awful. I hated her a little. The doctor came in to break my water. Everything was the same. Still had a fever, though it hadn't jumped up considerably. I think Ryan said that the doctor made a comment about blood in it. There was a lot of fluid!
She later came in with a new drug. She said it would help with pain since my epidural didn't work. I wasn't really paying attention. I was absolutely defeated at this point. I said, "Sure. Fine." She put it in my IV and I started to feel like I was floating on the freakin ceiling. I hated it! Mistake number two! I couldn't pay attention. I felt so confused and high. The humorless nurse came back in to check on me. "Can you still feel your contractions?" "Yes. But I care less."
Its true what they say about the effects of anxiety and stress on your labor. I felt like my contractions were slowly getting farther apart, or at least more random. After a while, I seriously had no concept of time but I can piece it together through what Ryan told me and by process of elimination.
25 long hours of labor. They finally brought the Pitocen in. (There's something I never thought I'd say!) Whatever that drug was had worn off. Ryan had succumbed to the sofa and was mostly unconscious. She started the drip and the doctor came to see how things were going. I barely remember him coming in because I didn't talk to him. I just wanted to be left alone. I knew Pitocen was strong. There was a little bit of a build up but not much. It felt like a jackhammer beating the contractions out of me. There was a point where I remember yelling for Ryan and the poor guy was so tired that he just waved his hand towards me and said, "Oh, you're fine-you can do it." He was asleep and has no recollection.
An alarm started to go off on my IV thingy, I think. Ryan was on the intercom with the nurse (fully conscious) when everything in my body shifted. That's literally all I can say about it. There was a force that I had never felt before and it had taken over. I was screaming-not the in the sense where the pretty girl screams at the camera in a scary movie but guttural screaming. I was pushing with each holler. The nurse came in to look at the IV, saw me and everything changed. She told me to turn over on my back so she could check me. "No, I'm not moving." "You need to move over onto your back, ok? I can't check you..." "YOU don't understand! I'm not moving!" So, she checked me how I was. According to Ryan, she checked me and then dashed out of the room. Nurses where moving all over the place and telling me not to push. RIGHT! No, someone is going to catch this baby! I didn't know who but I knew they weren't going to just let me drop it there. Ryan found a spot by my head. I looked at him one time. He was staring at the chaos with big eyes and stroking my hair. The doctor came in and checked. The lady that was supposed to be on duty couldn't make it, so he was going to deliver Baby G. It was go time. I was still in the same position and the nurse said something to the doctor about trying to get me to move earlier and my refusing. "No, we talked about this earlier. She can deliver in whatever position," he said. About halfway through, it felt like Ryan was boring a hole into the back of my skull with his finger. He kept saying, "You're doing great. I love you, " over and over. I yelled at him to quit rubbing my head like that!
I pushed for 10 minutes. 3:38 am- Out came Baby G! I didn't get to look at the baby much, they placed the baby on my belly and a grabbed for it. Finally! I was so...relieved. Part of me still couldn't believe it was all happening. Not just that I wasn't pregnant anymore but that everything was changed. That I was finally, really somebody's mommy.
A full two minutes passed before one of the other nurses asked, "Wait, was it a boy or a girl?!" They finally turned the baby over. "It's a boy," the doctor said! I wasn't disappointed or excited. I was just so happy to have a baby that was finally visible! He pooped all over me about that time. I was happy. Ryan cut the cord and we celebrated in utter silence that everyone was healthy and the whole thing was finally over.
Approximately 26 hours of labor. Worth it.
