Monday, October 8, 2012

A Baby Story

Back in the high school days when I ran cross county and track, I used to whine before every meet that I would rather birth a baby then suffer through the pain of another race.  Welp, I birthed a baby.  And now that I can say that I have completed both of these, I think I can compare the two a liiiitle bit better.  And the verdict is:  MY HIGH SCHOOL SELF WAS CRAZY.  As much as those races sucked, I would run another one backwards in high heels rather than squeeze another nearly 8 lb child out of my downstairs.  Just saying.  However as far as labor experiences go, I think I got off pretty easy.  So, here is the story of my little mans entrance in to the world.  If you don't necessarily want to hear all the details of this baby birthing, now would be a good time to stop reading!

Note: This picture had to be added first so the one of me huge and pregnant (see below) wasn't the picture that showed up on the summary page of this blog entry....

By the end of my pregnancy, I was pretty done with being pregnant.  And by pretty done I mean I wanted that baby out of me NOW.  At my 39 week appointment, my doctor told me that I was still at 1 cm (where I had been the past two weeks) and that my baby was already probably about 9 lbs.  Upon hearing this, and a few futile attempts of trying to get her to induce me that day, she left the room and I started bawling to my poor husband.  Thats when we made the goal to try every trick in the book to get labor started on our own. That night Ryan made eggplant parmesan for dinner since supposedly eggplant has some magic labor inducing power.  This involved him going to two different stores to find freaking eggplant, and some serious preparation on his part, so even though I was slightly terrified of eggplant, I decided I would eat every bite.  As it turns out, eggplant is kind of really chewy and disgusting.  And as it also turns out this nasty texture combined with it being vegetable (and therefore my enemy) does not sit well with my over sensitive pregnant lady stomach.  So poor Ryan got to watch me throw up his hard work all night.  Annnnd still no baby. So naturally we would decide to go for a long labor inducing walk.  And when I mean long I mean long, as Ryan said "We're not stopping til your water breaks!!"  which it didn't.  The next day was a full moon, which is also supposedly great at making babies want to come out.  Ryan made me stand outside and flash my belly to the moon.  In retrospect, I'm guessing he didn't REALLY think this would work, but just wanted to see how desperate I really was and / or just watch me do it.  And it worked!!! Just kidding.  I was definitely pregnant the next day, and starting to think those old wives were just full of crap.  We decided to give the myths one more try and whip out the big guns, aka castor oil.  This succeeded in making me absolutely miserable, but labor wise still nothing. 
One of the last pictures of me pregnant.  Just so don't think I was complaining for nothing....

So Sunday night over labor day weekend (approximately 24 hours after my weekend from hell trying to get labor moving), I started thinking my water might be leaking.  It wasn't a constant thing, and would just happen every once in a while.  Everything I read when I googled it said that if it was leaking it would happen constantly and not randomly, but it just kept happening.  So finally on Monday morning, which was labor day, I called the hospital to see what I should do.  They told me to come in so they could check to see if it really was my water leaking.  I was convinced they would send me home, tell me I was crazy and that I just kept peeing my pants.  We almost didn't even bring the hospital bags, but ended up grabbing them just in case.  When we got there, they got me in a gown, put me in a hospital bed, hooked up all the monitors and did a test to see if I was leaking amniotic fluid.  At this point I was laying there thinking I was going to feel reallly dumb if they sent us home after all that. After what seemed an eternity, the nurse came in and told me the test was positive and that they were going to keep me.  Ryan and I looked at each other in shock and tried to wrap our heads around the fact that we were having a baby, right here right now!

My mom had been (not so patiently) awaiting the news whether they were keeping us at the hospital since i told her we were going to go get the water situation checked out.  As soon as I was told I was going to be having the baby, I called her and the panic began.  It was my little brother Dylan's birthday, so they were at a trampoline place celebrating.  After I told her the news, she started screaming frantically for my other brother Kade to get my dad.  "KADE!! GET YOUR DAD!!! GET YOUR DAD!!!  THEY'RE KEEPING HER SHE'S HAVING A BABY!!  GET YOUR DAD!!!  WE HAVE TO GO!!!!"  After the panic subsided she headed home, booked a plane ticket to Utah and was on her way.
Looking super hot in the hospital.  Please do not attempt to count my chins.

 I wasn't having consistent regular contractions, so they got me started on the pitcoin at about 3 PM that day.  And then we were in for the long haul. They checked me when I came in, and I was still at only about 1 cm, and at around 8 PM when they checked me again I was still only around 1 to 2 cm.  At this point I was getting frustrated, because my contractions were definitely getting more intense and closer together - they were about 2- 3 minutes apart at this point - but nothing was happening!  The nurse decided to get a doctor in to fully break my water, since it was still just leaking slowly.  With it being labor day, the doctor came from his house in his jeans and t-shirt ready to get the party started. He used this terrifying looking pointy stick to get the job done.  My water breaking all the way was pretty much the werdest sensation ever.  My sister Kendall, and my friend Courtney had come to visit, so they got to witness this oh-so-exciting experience (as far as I know they were on the other side of the room so hopefully not witnessing TOO much for the sake of their own eyeballs....) The doctor who did the water break-age told me that my water must have been leaking from a slow, high leak, because the sack at the bottom was still fully intact, and this was most likely why I wasn't progressing because the sack wouldn't let the baby's head fully engage to dilate me further.  He also said he could feel hair on the baby's head!!

Before my water broke, my contractions were getting really really painful, and I felt like they were so close together I hardly got a break to recover from one before the next one started.  After they broke my water all the way, for a second it felt better - like some of the pressure had been relieved, but that relief was short lived.  The pain was back with a vengance. At this point I called in the nurse to beg her to get the anaesthesioglist in NOW to give me the epidural.  She must have misunderstood the word NOW because he took like a half an hour to get in there!  In the middle of my waiting for the epidural my brother Michael came to visit, and I was hurting so much I couldn't even really say hi or acknowledge his presence.  It turns out being in labor makes me a not-so-nice person.  Go figure.  FINALLY after what seemed like 45 years the anaesthiologist got there.  They started asking me for some stats, birthday, height, weight - and even in the middle of my agony I paused after he asked for my weight like "Really??  You really want me to announce my fully 9 month pregnant weight to my husband, siblings and friends in the room? I don't think so.  Forget it, I don't need the epidural" Yeah, just kidding about that last part, but luckily the nurse made everyone leave (except for Ryan, who now knows I was lying to him for 9 months about how much I weigh... greeeeat)  They sat me up cross legged to get the epidural going, and surprise - this position felt SO much better than lying down!  I could have lasted like this a LOT longer.  I didn't really know I was allowed to get up and walk around, or change positions, or anything, and just laid there through the pain.  But since the pain doctor was there and ready to go I was not about to send him away.

The epidural wasn't painful and it went really well - they laid me back down and shortly after I was back to smiling and laughing and not being a horrible person.  After I got the epidural they checked me and I was at about 3 cm, so I still had a ways to go.  I kept asking the nurse to reassure me that I wasn't a wimp that I only made it to 3 cm before I got the epidural - she told me that the pitocin made the contractions a lot stronger and painful without accomplishing a whole lot, so that made me feel better.  I went in to this experience saying I would try to have my baby natural - however I was obviously not very committed to this idea!  All I have to say is I have some serious respect for anyone who does have their baby naturally - I don't know how all you super women do it!

My mom got to the hospital around 10:30 PM and joined in the waiting party for baby boy to get here.  We read some magazines, watched some TV, made some attempts at sleeping.  At 12 PM the nurse came in to check me again.  With only making it to 3 cm in 6 plus hours, my hopes were not very high at this point that I'd made it much further. She told me I was at 5 cm and I was more than happy with that.  And then it was back to the waiting game.  She told me she'd come back in and check me around 2 AM.  At about 1 AM  I started to feel a LOT of pressure.  Right as I was about to call the nurse to come check me again (patience is also not a quality I possess while in labor apparently) she came in and said my contractions were making it look like I was getting close.  She did another check and hallelujah I was at 9 cm!  She said there was just one little piece of my cervix that we were waiting on.  She said she would come check on me again around 1:45 or 2 AM.  Well, 2 AM came and went and still no nurse!!  By this point I was feeling crazy amounts of pressure and the urge to push that baby out.  I was getting more and more impatient, and finally around 2:20 or  so I paged them and told them to get my nurse in there dang it!  She came in and told me there was a girl practically having her baby in the hallway, so she would be right back after they took care of her.  My impatient, selfish laboring self was thinking welll I am about to have a baby in here and I was here first so COME ON!

Finally the nurse got in at about 2:45 and told me it was time to start pushing.  I was pretty sure it was time to start pushing like an hour ago... She got me set up with her holding one leg, and Ryan holding the other (I'm thinking God made labor so painful so that you don't really mind that you have no dignity anymore) By this point my epidural had worn off some, so I was feeling a lot.  The pressure and urge to push was crazy!  The nurse had my grab my legs, take a big breath, and push three times in ten second intervals. I never knew pushing could be so exhausting!!!  After my first push I was like wait I have to do this for how long?!?!  I pushed for about half an hour, and she told me to stop pushing and it was time to call the doctor. I'm thinking wait the doctor isn't even here yet? Now I have to wait for her to get here??   I started just begging the nurse to deliver the baby herself.  My doctor wasn't even on call that day and she was out of town that weekend, so they weren't sure if she would be delivering my baby or another doctor. After what felt like an eternity of waiting, my doctor got there, and it was time to push my baby out!

After she got all set up in her scrubs with her torture table of scary looking instruments, she finally got me started pushing again. I'm not sure how many pushes it took - what I do know is at this point I was in go mode.  Every push was like a full body effort,  complete with some serious yelling on my part.  Thank goodness for all my cheerleaders - my awesome nurse, my doctor, Ryan, and my mom and sister (who were supposed to be up by my head not getting a front seat to the vajayjay show but apparently it was too exciting to miss and I was too tired and out of it to tell them they didn't want to see this.  Oh well, its their mind that image is scarred in to, not mine...) I am glad the epidural had somewhat worn off, because feeling my baby be born was one of the most crazy, amazing experiences I've ever had. As soon as I felt his head come out, followed by his shoulders it became so real that I was really having a baby.  When his shoulders came out, I felt and heard this weird pop and I panicked.  I thought his shoulder broke or got dislocated or something.  I asked the doctor and she said she heard it too - she thought it was his shoulder coming out of my pelvic bone, and that his shoulder should be fine (she had the pediatrician check and his shoulders were good to go!) The most incredible part of the whole experience was when they laid my baby boy on my chest and I got to meet him for the first time.  He was so alert and calm, and I looked in to his little face and fell in love instantly.
Lincoln Ryan Memmott was born at 3:53 AM on Tuesday September 4, 2012.  He weighted 7 lbs 11 oz (much less than the 9 pounder I was expecting - thank goodness) and was 20 inches long.  After they got him all cleaned up they gave him back to me to attempt to feed him (which you'd think wuold be easy - you've got the equipment and the baby, it should just happen.  Yeah, not so much...)  This was also made more difficult by the fact that I was shaking like crazy.  For some reason right after he was born I started shivering violently and it went on for what seemed like forever.  Apparently this is pretty normal? Once he finished attempting to eat they took him and Ryan off to the nursery to give him his first bath and do some tests  At this point I was STARVING - I hadn't been allowed to eat all day and the last thing I had eaten was breakfast at like 11 AM the day before.  The nurse gave me some sprite which almost immidiately made me super sick to my stomach.  My nurse told me you're not really in labor unless you have at least one of the three P/s - peeing, pooping, or puking.  Good thing you get a cute, snuggly baby out of it, other wise labor would seriously be considered a form of torture.  The nurses then got me moved in to my recovery room where I'm pretty sure I slept all of an hour before it was time to feed the little man again.  At this point I had been awake almost 24 hours and was more tired and exhausted than I've ever been in my life.





The rest of the hospital stay is kind of a blur of nurses and visitors and attempts to sleep.  Ryan was super husband and stayed with me every night (even though I'm not sure how he slept on that lame excuse they called a cot) They had us stay in the hospital for a full 48 hours after he was born since my water had been ruptured for 24 hours before he was actually delivered and they wanted to monitor us both for possible infections.  Finally on Thursday September 6th, after almost a full 3 days of being in the hospital, they finally started the discharge papers and sent us excited, terrified and slightly clueless parents off in to the world in charge of this little baby.  More on that adventure later!


2 comments:

  1. I'm thrilled you are blogging again!
    Love it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Samantha! I love your story. Thanks for sharing and for blogging again. Woohoo!

    ReplyDelete