| Tuesday, March 13, 2007 |
| Cash's Birth Story |
I have waited so long for the opportunity to be able to tell my own birth story! How exciting! :)
Si I first started having contractions on Thursday March 1. I woke up at 5:30 am with my back hurting and didn't quite think anything of it. For a couple of weeks I had been waking up like that due to the fact that I sleep on my side and my leg would fall asleep, so I would wake up and turn to the other side. Pillows would annoy me even more so I just dealt with the uncomfortableness. (is that a word?) Besides I was pregnant, so I made my peace with the fact that I was going to be uncomfortable. So on Thursday when I woke up I kind of turned a few times and then as I started to wake up I was thinking, "These pains are coming kind of regularly. Maybe they are contractions." Hubs was waking up as well because he had to go to work. Now Hubs and I share on car so I usually drive him to work and also drive my sister in law to school in the mornings. I let Hubs know I thought I was having contractions but they were 10 to 15 minutes apart. At my last doctor's appointment on Tuesday, the midwives had told me to give them a call once the contractions were 5 minutes apart for an hour, so I wasn't overly concerned. I took Hubs to work and sis to school and then came home. My brother in law was home with me, just in case. :) Then my mom called to check on me like she had been doing for the last week. I told her I think I'm having contractions and she got all excited. I told her I would call her if anything. Then I sat down and went on the computer a bit. About 9 am my brother called and asked if I could pick him up at school and take him to where my mom worked (he had gotten into an accident a couple days before and didn't have his car). I said sure as long as it was not too late. He said about noonish. I also had to take my brother in law to take a drug test for a new job he got. We had to wait till after ten when the lab opened. So I took him and as I was waiting I was making my list of who to call once I went to the hospital and who to call once the baby was born. Then I went to pick up my brother and take him to my mom's work. It ended up that my mom had taken the rest of the day off to hang out with me and my brother took her car to go to work. We ended up back at my house. Then for about two hours we watched TV and every time I went to the bathroom, my mom would ask if my water broke. I finally said, "Mom, you would know if my water broke! Relax." Around 1:30 pm my mom suggested that we take a ride up to the mall to walk around. I hadn't had a contraction since 11:15 am so I was open to the idea. So we did. I also had to go pick up my sister in law at school at 3 pm. So I was gallivanting all over the place. Then we came home and hubs got a ride home with a friend of ours,Alice, who he works with and who was my labor coach. Then I had to take my mom to her class at 5 pm. In between I had one more contraction at 4 pm. Then that was it for the rest of the day.
Friday I woke up at 5:30 am again with contractions. (And the baby has been up at 5:30 am everyday since ;) This time though, they were much more intense than the day before. I had to crouch on my hands and knees every time. I finally woke Hubs up and told him that I wouldn't be able to drive by myself, so he might want to wake his brother to come with us. I don't know what I was smoking talking like that, because I was in absolutely no condition to drive. Fortunately, Hubs totally saw that and said he was taking the car. The contractions were still 10 to 15 minutes apart so he decided to go to work and he had to take his sis to school. He made me promise to call him if the contractions got any closer together. And my brother in law was here with me, so I wasn't alone. All Friday I had contractions. They varied in time from 30 minutes apart to ten minutes apart. When hubs and Alice got home later that afternoon, I had set up shop on the couch in the living room and was trying to sleep between contractions. The sleep thing wasn't working so well though. Around 9 pm, Alice suggested we take a walk around the block. We did and it was nice but I feel much change. Then Alice went home for the night and I plopped myself on the couch with the TV remote and some ice water (It really does help!) The contractions continued all night and into the next morning. Around 6 am on Saturday the contractions got down to around 5 minutes apart and I called the midwife. She said alright let me call the midwife at the hospital and let her know you are coming. She said they would call me back to speak to me. I called my mom and Alice to tell them. Then... the midwife from the hospital called back and said they really don't want you to come in until the contractions are 3 minutes apart. At this point she said I would probably just come in and they would send me home. I was pissed. There are no other words. I really felt like I needed to go but anyway. So I called my mom and Alice quick and told them and then tried to lay back and relax. I tried to sleep for most of the day which was quite impossible due to the fact that the contractions stayed around 5-7 minutes apart all day. Luckily, my family fluttered around me trying to make sure I was comfortable, hydrated and doing alright. Alice came by around6 pm and Hubs was making dinner around that time. She suggested we start walking. By now the contractions were much more intense so we decided to just walk up and down the dead end I live on. The first walk brought the contractions back to 5 minutes consistently. Then we went in to have dinner. Hubs had made pork chops, carrots and rice. They made me eat most of it. It was good but sitting at the kitchen table was really uncomfortable so I bolted back to the couch as soon as I could. I sat for about an hour and then Alice had me walking again. She sat with me all night and has a nice hand sized bruise on her leg to prove it. Whenever I would have a contraction I would squeeze her thigh. She was a trooper about it though. Then about 3 am, I really started to break down. I had gone to the bathroom and when I wiped I could have sworn, I was touching the baby's head. I kind of begged Alice to call the midwife back even though I had never really made it past 4 minutes apart. She heard the desperation in my voice and gave them a call. We kind of fudged the numbers at that point, telling the midwife on call that the contractions were between three and six minutes apart. The midwife fortunately said that considering how long I had been having contractions, I should come in and be looked at. I was filled with relief at that point. So we woke up hubs and got ready to go. At the last minute I grabbed my pillow and blanket, which was to come in handy later. The ride to the hospital was uneventful but as I was having each contraction I couldn't lift myself up to ease the pain so it was difficult. Then the hospital we were going to is renovating so there was a long walk up to the front door and no wheelchair right out front. Talk about your climbing the last mountain. Once we got up to the hospital I fell into the nearest wheelchair and we waited for Hubs to park the car and meet us. Once he got there we made our way to the maternity floor. We got in checked in and they put me into an assessment room. The nurse came in and had me put on this belly band that looked like a bandeau top, so they could monitor the baby's heartbeat and my contractions. It hurt like hell to have anything on my belly but I figured I had to deal with it for the time being. The chair I was sitting in was so uncomfortable and hard too, kind of like a dentist's chair, so contractions were torture. Then she took a whole bunch of information. Finally the midwife came in and did an exam. She looked up at me with the biggest look of surprise on her face and said to me, "You are 5-6 cm dilated! You get to stay." I almost cried with relief at that point. I had been up for 48 hours straight and was in so much pain. The midwife asked me if I wanted something for the pain and the answer was an exuberant YES! I had luckily set up a birth plan and had decided to try and avoid an epidural but was open to the possibility of a shot of Stadol (which is a generic form of Demerol). They then wheeled me into one of the labor and delivery rooms and Hubs went to go call everyone. The anesthesiologist came into give me the shot and the last thing I remember is watching him inject the medicine into my IV and thinking, "He's not even pushing the plunger!" Then Hubs came back in and I tried to say something to him and my lips wouldn't work properly. I can't help but laugh over that memory. I apparently woke up about four hours later out of the deepest most restful sleep I had had in months, years even! I remember I could feel my contractions before I was even fully awake and mobile. That was a weird feeling. It was about 8 am at this point. Then next hour went by in a blur. In this middle of that the midwives had changed shifts and the midwife I had hoped to deliver my baby came on. There is a team of midwives and when we went for the meet and greet there was one in particular that I really liked. Her name was Heather and she was this black Jamaican lady who just had the happiest but totally realistic outlook on birth and life in general. I was so relaxed at this point but then I started feeling like I had to push so I yelled for the midwife. My water had still not broken by this point but I think I was 8 cm dilated and 100% effaced so the midwife decided to break my water. THAT I can tell you was one of the weirdest feelings I've ever felt. After that labor progressed very quickly. At first I wasn't pushing very effectively. I was growling too much. ;) But I fixed that pretty quickly. Hubs was at my side the whole time, rooting me on. Once the baby's head and shoulders came out, the midwife said to me reach down. I though she wanted me to reach down and feel the baby's head, like I've seen the doctor's do on TLC's A Baby Story. So I reached my hand under my leg and apparently almost poked the baby in the eye. He was saved by Hubs. What the midwife actually wanted was for me to reach down with both hands and grab the baby and pull him to me and put him on my chest. Which I did. He was screaming and messy and warm and the most beautiful thing in the world. I kissed him and Hubs Kissed him and then I kissed Hubs. That was probably the greatest feeling in the world other than the day I got married. Then the midwife asked Hubs if he wanted to cut the cord. He turned a bit green from what the told me but he did it. I am so proud of him. He was a rock in the delivery room. And he hates that kind of stuff. Then they took the baby to the other side of the room to clean him off and check him out. He then proceeded to pee on the midwife. That's my boy! I am so happy Cash Joseph is here and it is so wonderful to see him and daddy together. |
posted by ~M~ @ 2:52 AM   |
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| 3 Comments: |
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wonderful birth story!
I demand more pictures!!
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I am so glad things went well for you! That is an awesome story!
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so so so sweet. Just wanted to pop in and say Hello, Michele sent me
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wonderful birth story!
I demand more pictures!!