Birth Story

So you wanna know my birth story? Great well I'll tell you anyway. ;-)

Around 4am on March 4th I awoke to some very bad back pain. I attributed it to the normal aches and pains of pregnancy. I rolled over, took a deep breath, and went back to sleep. A little while later, I felt pain again. This time I asked my sleepy husband to reach over and rub it. His efforts weren't very effective. I decided that it must be the bed that is causing the discomfort and since my constant movement was keeping my husband awake, I decided to move to the couch downstairs. I laid down, dozed for a bit, and again the pain came back. I got down on my hands and knees and did a few pelvic thrusts. That caused temporary relief from the pain.

March 4th was a Wednesday, which thankfully happened to be my husband's day off. My brother-in-law was also in town helping us with some household projects. Thank goodness for both of these things. By 9am when my husband was making waffles for us to eat for breakfast, I was doubled over the counter in tears and pain. My brother-in-law asked if he could rub my back. His efforts were a little more successful than my husband's (sorry darling). Then I felt some wetness and decided to check it out. I had started bleeding. I came downstairs and told my husband we needed to go to the hospital. The poor guy thought something had gone wrong. He didn't know that bleeding was a normal thing. He also thought I'd be checked out in triage, they'd tell me I have a ways to go, and they'd send me home. Yeah, that's not how it went down.

The first thing I tried to do was get ahold of my doctor. She had given me her pager number so I tried that. Unfortunately I never got into the era of pagers so I had no idea how it worked. I called and got a *beep* and hung up. I didn't know I was supposed to type in my number so she could call back. So we went to the doctor's office. Thankfully it was just down the street and also right across from the hospital. We got to the office and I could hardly walk I was hurting so much. The doors were open but nobody was there, not even a receptionist. We went to the emergency room.

They wheeled me up to the 7th floor Birthing Center and in the middle of my contractions they were trying to get me to sign papers. I think my signature was hardly readable. They kept asking me who my doctor was and they didn't seem to have her in their system. I was so annoyed. I kept saying "Where's the doctor?!?" during my labor and delivery. Apparantly my doctor was listed under her attending physician's name. I had only seen her attending physician one time. I had no idea.

In triage they told me I was 9 and a half centimeters dialated. I laughed through the pain and said "are you SERIOUS?". My husband was clueless. Really, for being one of seven children, I thought he would know more about the whole process. He kept asking the nurses "so wait, we're going to have a baby? today? really?". It was hilarious now that we look back on it.

So they have me put on a hospital gown and they wheel me from triage to the birthing room. The details from here until the birth are kind of fuzzy for me, to be honest with you. Since I was so far along, drugs were not an option. I remember laying on the bed and every time I looked up it seemed like a new person and a new piece of equipment had entered the room. I felt like I was on display for the world to see. Just waiting for that big moment. And still no doctor. I also remember the nurse having trouble getting the IV in. She poked me once on each hand and finally the IV went into my arm. Three pokes for one stupid IV. Then after the birth they took it out too soon and I got light headed. So I was re-poked to put it back in. How annoying.

The nurses kept saying "just breathe through it darling". Did I mention I never took birthing classes? Not like they would have helped anyway. I just kept thinking about taking long deep breaths (as deep as I could with my little lump of awesome still inside my belly). At some point the doctor arrived with her attending physician. I'm pretty sure things happened fast after that. My body shook terribly and I said something about it. The doctor said it was normal. Somehow my body had provided a natural drug--adrenaline. I seriously felt delirious.

My doctor offered to break my water for me since to that point the little sac was still in tact. She showed me the tool she would use and I declined. For the next child I think I'll let them do it if necessary, because when my water finally broke it seemed to explode all over the place. I think I heard the people in the room laugh. For me there was pressure, an explosion, and a warm trickle. I think I said "aaah" which is why people laughed. How embarassing.

The easiest way I can think to describe what having a baby is like is to imagine what it feels like to be constipated...with a really large turd. I know, gross...but that's the facts. My husband told me later that I pooped while pushing too. I'm glad I didn't know that at the time. I was asked to grab the back of my legs and push for 10 seconds, then break, then go right back at it. I felt like I was running a marathon. My husband said he'd never seen my face so red. Then when the head poked through the doctor said "stop!". When I stopped the head went back in a little. The doctor's strategy was to gently "rock" the baby out, in order to reduce tearing. It didn't work. I think once I felt the baby partially out I must have gotten excited because the next thing I knew, my little bundle catapulted onto the table in front of me. Have you ever shot a potato gun (or seen somebody shoot one)? My little babe was the potato. The doctor really did have to "catch" the baby. Then he was passed to the nurses and shortly after I heard the maddest little scream ever. Who can blame him really? He was comfy in there! While the nurses worked on the baby, I was still spread eagle so the doctors could stitch my tear. They gave me a couple local shots to numb me and went to work. I sat with my legs in the air for about an hour. It felt like forever.

So, on Wednesday March 4th and 11:04am, a littlie miracle was born. I was so glad that the whole process only took a total of about 7 hours (and he's my first!). It was the couple of weeks postpartum that were really trying on my patience.