after an entire year (gasp!) of no posts, i'm back with another birth story. if you don't like birth stories (with all the gross details), then be warned.
March 11, 2017
I was a day past my due date, and at 11 PM, I started having regular contractions. Well, what I thought were probably contractions. They weren't hugely painful or anything, but painful enough that I thought "This could be it. I could be going into labor. If I am then I'll probably have my baby tomorrow morning. On my son's second birthday." I kept an eye on the contractions all night, and they stayed consistently 5-7 minutes apart, but were not consistently a minute in length.
March 12, 2017
I was two days past my due date. In the morning, I had some bloody show and thought, "Well, crap." So I called my doctor and she told me that if I was in labor, I was likely not close enough to warrant coming in since I was only a half cm dilated at my last appointment. But things were moving! She told me to call her when the contractions lasted for a minute each.
So I went along with my day. I had made Grover and Big Bird cupcakes for Cricket's birthday. We were going over to my parents' house where my dad was making a turkey dinner. (More because he had been out of the country for a while and came back to find he still had a turkey in his freezer that needed to be eaten than because it was Cricket's birthday.) We loaded the toddler and the cupcakes into the car, started driving, and I almost fainted. I couldn't breathe, my vision started going black, I was dizzy and nauseous and ready to jump out of the car. Or, open the door and topple out into the road just so I could be out of it. I felt like I was suffocating. So we went to the hospital instead.
All of my vitals were normal, I was only 1 cm dilated, and my cervix was still really high. So they gave me some graham crackers and some apple juice, had me wait around in a bed for a while to make sure I was really okay, and then sent me on my way. Halfway to my parents house, I couldn't breathe, my vision started going black, etc etc. Not wanting to go to the hospital again, though, I just fought it until we got to my parents' house (with a very concerned husband and freaked out toddler). I started to feel better at my parents'. We ate turkey. We ate cupcakes. We sang happy birthday. I only felt a few contractions during the whole visit and thought, "Huh. Guess it was a false alarm." My mom offered to spend the night at our house so she could stay with Cricket if I needed to get to the hospital, but I didn't think it was necessary. We made plans for her to stop by at 730 the next morning after dropping my brothers off at school.
That night, though, the contractions came back. Getting stronger. Getting longer. Getting closer together. I didn't want to wake up my husband when he had work the next morning or have my mom drive all the way over in the middle of the night for another false alarm, so I just kept an eye on them.
March 13, 2017
I sat on my bed, the bathroom light slicing through the darkness of my room, rocking through contractions, timing them on my phone, wondering if I should bother people yet or not. I was always told that you should head to the hospital when you had to stop to breathe through the contractions. By the time that happened, they were just under three minutes apart.
I called my mom, who immediately headed over to my house. I called my doctor, who said, "I've been waiting all day for you to call. I told you to come in when they were a minute long (which had happened hours and hours before). Get to the hospital. I'll meet you there." I packed my hospital bag and got dressed. By this point, things were starting to get painful, and I was thinking longingly of the epidural waiting for me at the hospital. I kept calling my mom to see where she was. I went down to wait in the car. Eventually, my mom said she was five minutes away and to just go. I had a panic attack thinking of leaving Cricket in the house alone, for even a minute, but it was getting really uncomfortable waiting in the car, and I really wanted those drugs. My mom pulled into our neighborhood as we pulled out of it.
We get to the hospital, and I tell my husband to drop me off at the door to the ER and go park. I tell the guy at the reception desk that I was having a baby, and he said, "Like, right now?!" I said, "haha no, can you imagine? I think I'm probably at a 5." So he tells me to wait and he'll have someone bring a wheelchair to take me up since I was clearly feeling the regular contractions.
I get up to my room, and they hook me up to the monitors at 3:58 AM and start asking me all the registration questions. The first thing I said was, "I'd like an epidural." So while one nurse asked me questions, another checked me and said, "Um... we'll try to get you one." I asked how far along I was, but she wouldn't tell me. All she would say was, "You've progressed from the morning." That's when I started to get nervous. She went to try and get the anesthesiologist and I asked another nurse, Karen, how far along I was. She checked me, gave me a little look that let me know I was screwed, and told me I was at 9. Maybe a little past.
That's when the panic hit. "I can't be at 9. I wanted drugs. I need drugs. I can't have a baby without drugs," I told her frantically. She assured me that they'd try their best to get me an epidural. My OB still hadn't made it to the hospital. Karen kept telling me about the on call doctor, but I didn't realize why until after the fact. I talked with Karen about my stupidity about wanting to wait to come in at 7 so I wouldn't wake anyone up. She told me that with her fourth baby, she did the same thing, and then got stuck in rush hour on the way to the hospital and had her baby at the side of the road.
My doctor still wasn't there. The epidural still wasn't there. And suddenly, it was time to push.
Just as I started pushing, my doctor raced into the room. She didn't even have time to get her scrubs on. As I screamed at her that I wanted drugs, she told me that she told me to come in earlier. I remember screaming "I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this." I remember my doctor saying I didn't have much of a choice. I remember my water bursting, and my doctor telling me to try and stay still because she had her normal shoes on and didn't want them to get splashed. I remember Karen being endlessly encouraging. I remember snapping at my doctor and yelling at her, and her saying, "Why are you nice to the nurses but mean to me?" (I realize that she sort of sounds like a bitch, but she's really not. And I love her. And it's kind of our thing.) I remember screaming, "I WANT DRUGSSSS!"
At 4:29 AM, screaming louder than I thought I ever would in a public place, I delivered a healthy baby boy. The first words out of the doctor's mouth were, "Look at that noggin!" He was 7 lbs 4 oz and 21 inches. I felt every stitch as my doctor stitched me up, and resentfully told her afterwards, to which she replied with exasperation, "You should have said something! That is a pain you didn't have to feel." I remember feeling spent and proud and incredulous.
The nurses at the hospital (Karen for labor, Jessica in the maternity ward) were amazing. Just like my last delivery. My mom stayed with me in the hospital while my husband went home with Cricket. Cricket came to see his brother that day, and it was the most heartwarming moment of my life. Ducky (baby number 2) wanted to nurse all. freaking. night. But I was used to not sleeping from Cricket, and had actually gotten to nap during the day, and was still feeling a little euphoric. I remember Jessica saying, "I can't believe you can still smile at the nurses after not sleeping all night." And all I could think was, "Oh my God. I did it."
February 25, 2018
In a little over two weeks, Ducky will turn one year old. This year has absolutely flown by. He has such a big personality, adores his brother more than anyone else, and lets you know exactly what he wants. He's sweet and funny and eager to copy his brother. The year has had its ups and downs, but he is such a blessing, and we couldn't be happier that he joined our family.
And was not born in the car.
March 11, 2017
I was a day past my due date, and at 11 PM, I started having regular contractions. Well, what I thought were probably contractions. They weren't hugely painful or anything, but painful enough that I thought "This could be it. I could be going into labor. If I am then I'll probably have my baby tomorrow morning. On my son's second birthday." I kept an eye on the contractions all night, and they stayed consistently 5-7 minutes apart, but were not consistently a minute in length.
March 12, 2017
I was two days past my due date. In the morning, I had some bloody show and thought, "Well, crap." So I called my doctor and she told me that if I was in labor, I was likely not close enough to warrant coming in since I was only a half cm dilated at my last appointment. But things were moving! She told me to call her when the contractions lasted for a minute each.
So I went along with my day. I had made Grover and Big Bird cupcakes for Cricket's birthday. We were going over to my parents' house where my dad was making a turkey dinner. (More because he had been out of the country for a while and came back to find he still had a turkey in his freezer that needed to be eaten than because it was Cricket's birthday.) We loaded the toddler and the cupcakes into the car, started driving, and I almost fainted. I couldn't breathe, my vision started going black, I was dizzy and nauseous and ready to jump out of the car. Or, open the door and topple out into the road just so I could be out of it. I felt like I was suffocating. So we went to the hospital instead.
All of my vitals were normal, I was only 1 cm dilated, and my cervix was still really high. So they gave me some graham crackers and some apple juice, had me wait around in a bed for a while to make sure I was really okay, and then sent me on my way. Halfway to my parents house, I couldn't breathe, my vision started going black, etc etc. Not wanting to go to the hospital again, though, I just fought it until we got to my parents' house (with a very concerned husband and freaked out toddler). I started to feel better at my parents'. We ate turkey. We ate cupcakes. We sang happy birthday. I only felt a few contractions during the whole visit and thought, "Huh. Guess it was a false alarm." My mom offered to spend the night at our house so she could stay with Cricket if I needed to get to the hospital, but I didn't think it was necessary. We made plans for her to stop by at 730 the next morning after dropping my brothers off at school.
That night, though, the contractions came back. Getting stronger. Getting longer. Getting closer together. I didn't want to wake up my husband when he had work the next morning or have my mom drive all the way over in the middle of the night for another false alarm, so I just kept an eye on them.
March 13, 2017
I sat on my bed, the bathroom light slicing through the darkness of my room, rocking through contractions, timing them on my phone, wondering if I should bother people yet or not. I was always told that you should head to the hospital when you had to stop to breathe through the contractions. By the time that happened, they were just under three minutes apart.
I called my mom, who immediately headed over to my house. I called my doctor, who said, "I've been waiting all day for you to call. I told you to come in when they were a minute long (which had happened hours and hours before). Get to the hospital. I'll meet you there." I packed my hospital bag and got dressed. By this point, things were starting to get painful, and I was thinking longingly of the epidural waiting for me at the hospital. I kept calling my mom to see where she was. I went down to wait in the car. Eventually, my mom said she was five minutes away and to just go. I had a panic attack thinking of leaving Cricket in the house alone, for even a minute, but it was getting really uncomfortable waiting in the car, and I really wanted those drugs. My mom pulled into our neighborhood as we pulled out of it.
We get to the hospital, and I tell my husband to drop me off at the door to the ER and go park. I tell the guy at the reception desk that I was having a baby, and he said, "Like, right now?!" I said, "haha no, can you imagine? I think I'm probably at a 5." So he tells me to wait and he'll have someone bring a wheelchair to take me up since I was clearly feeling the regular contractions.
I get up to my room, and they hook me up to the monitors at 3:58 AM and start asking me all the registration questions. The first thing I said was, "I'd like an epidural." So while one nurse asked me questions, another checked me and said, "Um... we'll try to get you one." I asked how far along I was, but she wouldn't tell me. All she would say was, "You've progressed from the morning." That's when I started to get nervous. She went to try and get the anesthesiologist and I asked another nurse, Karen, how far along I was. She checked me, gave me a little look that let me know I was screwed, and told me I was at 9. Maybe a little past.
That's when the panic hit. "I can't be at 9. I wanted drugs. I need drugs. I can't have a baby without drugs," I told her frantically. She assured me that they'd try their best to get me an epidural. My OB still hadn't made it to the hospital. Karen kept telling me about the on call doctor, but I didn't realize why until after the fact. I talked with Karen about my stupidity about wanting to wait to come in at 7 so I wouldn't wake anyone up. She told me that with her fourth baby, she did the same thing, and then got stuck in rush hour on the way to the hospital and had her baby at the side of the road.
My doctor still wasn't there. The epidural still wasn't there. And suddenly, it was time to push.
Just as I started pushing, my doctor raced into the room. She didn't even have time to get her scrubs on. As I screamed at her that I wanted drugs, she told me that she told me to come in earlier. I remember screaming "I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this." I remember my doctor saying I didn't have much of a choice. I remember my water bursting, and my doctor telling me to try and stay still because she had her normal shoes on and didn't want them to get splashed. I remember Karen being endlessly encouraging. I remember snapping at my doctor and yelling at her, and her saying, "Why are you nice to the nurses but mean to me?" (I realize that she sort of sounds like a bitch, but she's really not. And I love her. And it's kind of our thing.) I remember screaming, "I WANT DRUGSSSS!"
At 4:29 AM, screaming louder than I thought I ever would in a public place, I delivered a healthy baby boy. The first words out of the doctor's mouth were, "Look at that noggin!" He was 7 lbs 4 oz and 21 inches. I felt every stitch as my doctor stitched me up, and resentfully told her afterwards, to which she replied with exasperation, "You should have said something! That is a pain you didn't have to feel." I remember feeling spent and proud and incredulous.
The nurses at the hospital (Karen for labor, Jessica in the maternity ward) were amazing. Just like my last delivery. My mom stayed with me in the hospital while my husband went home with Cricket. Cricket came to see his brother that day, and it was the most heartwarming moment of my life. Ducky (baby number 2) wanted to nurse all. freaking. night. But I was used to not sleeping from Cricket, and had actually gotten to nap during the day, and was still feeling a little euphoric. I remember Jessica saying, "I can't believe you can still smile at the nurses after not sleeping all night." And all I could think was, "Oh my God. I did it."
February 25, 2018
In a little over two weeks, Ducky will turn one year old. This year has absolutely flown by. He has such a big personality, adores his brother more than anyone else, and lets you know exactly what he wants. He's sweet and funny and eager to copy his brother. The year has had its ups and downs, but he is such a blessing, and we couldn't be happier that he joined our family.
And was not born in the car.
