I thought I knew exactly how this labor would be, but apparently I knew nothing because I learned that nothing can ever be the same and that this labor was a labor of a different color and I had no clue what to expect. This is my run down of my third experience giving birth and some of it may be hard to read, but I guess it's up to the reader.
My first child had to be induced so I never quite knew what things felt like when it came to delivering our second child. But by our third, I totally thought I knew what a contraction felt like. Apparently I was way wrong in this instance and here is my explanation.
It all started Monday night when around dinner time, I started feeling terrible pains in my back. SO much so that I could barely move around the house. It also caused me to feel like my right groin muscles were being pulled out of joint. That whole night, I slept awful. I kept thinking...It's coming. Any moment now, I will start to feel even more excruciating pains. Nothing came though. I was exhausted from having no sleep.
In the morning, I had my doctor's appointment early, so I ate some breakfast of a couple muffins and a bowl of cereal and dropped the kids off at a friends house and continued on. At my appointment, my doctor came in and told me she was surprised to see me still pregnant. Then she asked, "How does tomorrow at 4am sound?" At first I thought she was joking with me but her face told me she wasn't. She followed up with a "Well, let's check and see where you're at and go from there. If you are a 5, I'm sending you next door to get things going." At 9:20, she checked and laughed. She asked her nurse what she said and the reminder was a 5. She then reported to me that I was a 4 almost a 5 and said, it's time to have this baby. It caught me off guard and I started to cry for a couple different reasons. The first being that I really did want to have this baby in May because we thought it would be cool if each kid had their own month for birthdays. The second was because I wasn't feeling any contractions and with Hadley, I atleast knew what was happening by a 4. She checked my measurements with stomach and then listened to the heartbeat and said that my daughter is saying, it's time to meet me. I continued to cry and she asked what's wrong and I mainly expressed the frustration that I'm not feeling contractions. She said it's okay and then asked what needed to be done before going over. I told her that my kids were with a friend, but I need to call my husband at work and get my bags and figure out the kids for the rest of the day since grandma was gone still in Chicago with wedding plans.
I called Jared as I headed to the car and told him it's go time and that we were having the baby today. I then reported how my appointment went and he said he'd leave work now, call his Dad to watch the kids for naps on and meet me at home to go to the hospital together. I then drove to my friend's house and delivered car seats, told her what was going on and that my father-in-law would take the kids from her around nap time.
We stopped by Burger King before going into the hospital so Jared could have some lunch since hospital food is scarce for husbands. I was also regretting not making an omelet this morning like I had been craving because my tank was on empty and I wasn't allowed to eat anything until after the baby came.
We walked into the hospital and told them my doctor sent me over and told them my name. They checked us into Labor and Delivery Room 5 and we waited starting around 10:45 am. Finally after getting things in order and admitting me with all of the forms, they hooked me up around 12:30, 12:45 pm. Apparently, according to the machine, I had been experiencing contractions at a steady 5 minutes apart which I hadn't felt.
We just kind of chilled and talked for a bit. We talked about how things are going to work for different scenarios involving the kids and our stay at the hospital for all of this. Then, we started watching Marley and Me on our laptop for some entertainment because I really didn't want to discuss names any further. At around 3:10, they checked on how I was doing and I was at a 6, almost 7. By that time, I had started feeling pains that were contractions and identifying them better, but on the fun pain scale of the hospital, the pain changed from a 3 to almost a 5, 10 being worst. They started the Potossin and Jared and I discussed whether I would do an epidural or not. I was a bit hesitant because I dry heaved during the last time which scared Jared wicked bad. I wasn't really feeling any pain either. After a little discussion, Jared finally convinced me to get one before things got bad and I started feeling bad. So at 3:30, I got an epidural by a really nice anesthesiologist. This time, the nice LDR nurse, Windy, held me steady while Jared took glances from across the room during the process.
It's funny, I didn't remember feeling certain things last time, but this time, I felt the sensation or sound of it going through the cartilage between my spine and then a tingling sensation. The medicine was cold and I didn't remember that. Also, my right leg I think got more because it started tingling to numbness sooner than my left and it took longer to get working again too. A short while after, I started feeling really nauseous and exhausted and starving. I ended up puking as well which was expected.
About an hour later, Jared was getting hungry for something again and decided to go downstairs real quick to find a snack. Right before he came back (4:40), she checked me and I was dialated to a 9. Then, at 4:45, I felt a pop and told the nurse I think my water just broke. She confirmed it and Jared got back and told him what was going on. The nurse then decided to call my doctor at that point. We found out that she was headed towards Summerlin at the time and quickly turned around to come to the hospital.
As my doctor arrived, the nurses were setting up to deliver and they were joking about speeding and how she got to the hospital awfully quick. The baby's nurse was going through paperwork with me. My doctor checked me while getting ready and found I was at a 10. The baby's nurse got concerned and thought she had more time to finish getting ready. My doctor continued finishing getting ready and then all of a sudden told the nurses not to shake the table. They asked why and she replied, "Because I don't want the baby to fall out." She said, "Look here comes the head." The baby was crowning all by herself without pushing. I started pushing and did a set of 3 pushes and took a quick break. On the second set of pushes, I did 3 more and the doctor was stretching me to get ready for the shoulders to come out and urged me to do one more push.
That last push, the baby kind of shot out all at once very quickly as Jared explained. The baby cried a couple times and Jared cut the chord. The doctor commented on how beautiful the chord looked. She described it as "textbook" and Jared said it was amazing because it was this perfect double coil and you could see a ton.
The nurse gave the baby an 8 and then a 10 for coloring and called her "perfect." She was born at 5:21 pm. She weighed 7 lbs. 10 oz. and measured at 20 inches after two measurements. Jared swears, she's only 18 though. She has lots of hair and she didn't need to be suctioned because she started breathing through her nose after two cries. We think she swallowed some fluid though because she was hacking some up for a little bit.
As for me, because she came out so fast at the end, I did end up tearing a little in two places, but other than that, it was a pretty smooth and good experience.
