I'm always the first to make a postpartum momma-blogger feel bad about not cranking out their birth story 5.5 hours after the birth, so I appreciate your patience in waiting for this. I'm not really sure why it's taken so long. Just lazy, I guess.
Saturday, April 27th, we spent the most beautiful day working in the yard and cleaning the house (was I forcing myself to nest or was it all natural? I'll never know, but it worked). I took a nap after dinner and when I woke up at 6pm, I lifted my leg to stretch and felt
the gush. But (TMI?) I wasn't convinced it was my water breaking because nothing else was going on.
We took Joan for a walk up and down the street (Charlotte was in LA with my parents for the week) and I kept leaking and having minor sporadic contractions. So, we called my friend Carmen, mother to Joan's friend Amelia, and asked if she could spend the night just in case I went into real labor.
I showered and gave Joan a bath, packed her things, and we brought her over to Carmen's house at 8pm. I was thisclose to having Carmen check to see how dilated I was (it's cool, she's a labor/delivery nurse), but she didn't have any sterile gloves, so... no go.
We got home, packed the hospital bag and tried to finish the season 2 finale of Sleeper Cell while I did a little nipple stimulation to get contractions going, if they were gonna go at all. After about 3 strong contractions I was ready to go to the hospital - I knew it was getting serious and I knew I shouldn't stay and labor at home anymore. All of a sudden I was like, "get in the van now. we need to leave now." Jude must have misheard me and thought I said, "let's go in a few minutes, after you make yourself a travel mug of chocolate milk," because that's what he did while I waited by the van (he makes up for this later).
9:45pm we arrive at the hospital and I'm 4cm dilated and 70% effaced.
10:45pm we start walking the hospital halls and I labor in the shower (best. idea. ever.), keeping up with nipple stimulation to keep contractions coming.
11:30pm I'm 7.5-8 cm and really starting to hurt.
That's when I started the mental debate over getting an epidural. And I'll be honest, remembering the pain from
Charlotte's non-medicated birth and knowing that my friend
Kaitlin was stalled at 9+cm for FOUR HOURS was terrifying me. In the middle of debating it with Jude and my nurse (who were both very encouraging that I was almost done and could just do without), I had 2
really terrible contractions and decided I was done and wanted the epidural.
12:10am Epidural time. I quickly felt some relief on my right side, but none on the left. We tried tilting me so it would run to the other side, but nothing. It seemed to taper the pain a little (because I wasn't screaming like with Charlotte), but then at some point it just seemed to stop working.
12:45am I threw up and was at 9cm with just a sliver left. My nurse slipped it over his head during a push and I was fully dilated. I was in a ton of pain, but still not feeling the urge to push. And I know my epidural didn't work because we started getting into different positions to get him lower and ready to push. We tried the birthing bar, the stirrups, the foot pedals, squatting on the bed, sitting up, lying down - obviously I wasn't feeling any help from the epidural or I wouldn't have been able to move around like I was.
It's important to mention here that I was extremely discouraged - I had finally consented to the pain meds and was expecting relief. When I didn't get that, I felt like I couldn't emotionally recover from the let down. In between contractions I would cry and say, "something's wrong. It's not supposed to feel this way."
My nurse said I handled the pain better when pushing and even though I wasn't feeling quite ready, I started the pushing process. We backed off for a while because I was getting exhausted, but came back to the pushing around 2:00am because nothing else was working.
I pushed for an eternity (one hour) and Jude had to fan me the entire time. The pushing was still mother-directed, because you know, I could
feel every contraction very well. It was just like a movie. I was sweating and crying and breathing heavily and he was freezing and fanning me and saying, "C'mon! You can do this!" It must've been the chocolate milk, because he was incredible. But this was my second discouraging moment. I honestly thought my third would
fly right out of me, and when he didn't, I again just couldn't get over it. It made the pushing so much worse, feeling like I was doing something wrong.
Then, finally at 3:00am, Simon Jude came out - super chill and alert, but not crying. After several reassurances that "he's fine," I believed the nurses, held him against me, and thanked God that was over.
And now, I thank God that the recovery part is over, because that was pretty terrible and the third time I was discouraged by this birth. But you don't need to worry about that. It's all over and we have a beautiful little boy.
A boy. Crazy.
