We're going to start on Thursday September 22. I had a doctor's appointment, they checked to see if and how far I was dilated and effaced and all that. Sadly, no progress. I hadn't felt any contractions and was doing everything I could think of to speed things up. I rode a bike for an hour, I walked a couple miles a day, I ate mango and pineapple, I took advice from friends and walked with one leg on the curb and the other on the road. I didn't try any of the laxatives, I was pretty nervous about spending a long time on the toilet, somehow that didn't sound fun. I continued to work as much and as hard as I could. And as far as my boss goes, I am one good worker. Back to the appointment... No progress and I was getting anxious. So the nurse practitioner asked the question "Do you want to be induced?" Well, YES! I was so done being pregnant and getting pretty nervous about how big this guy was gonna get. So we scheduled an appointment for Monday so I could see an actual doctor and have him tell me whether they could induce me on Tuesday or not.
Monday I go back and get checked and I was dilated to about a 2 or a 3 (his words). How exciting! Then I get asked that same question again... Do you want to be induced? Well... I'm not so sure this time around... I do a pretty good job of putting stressful things to the back of my mind, well at least the really big stuff, like the fact that I was having a baby. And there are some people that I talked to about that had nothing good to say about it. So I was a little less inclined to say I wanted that baby out of me right then. So the doctor told me to come back on Thursday if I hadn't had the baby yet and they would do a non stress test to see how everything was going.
Before we get to Thursday, let's take a minute and admire my accomplishments of the week of my due date. Monday: Michael had a little work barbecue thing at the park that we went to and I ran and kicked the soccer ball around for about a half hour. And that's after working that day too. Wednesday: On my due date, I worked at the clinic for 9 hours, was on my feet for 8.5 of it, and restrained some pretty beastly dogs. Not to mention all the other fun manual labor aspects of my job. And after that, I spent about 2 more hours deep cleaning my house for the third time that week. And then there's Thursday...
And now that it's Thursday, you get to hear about my third doctor's appointment within a week. That's a little ridiculous. I get there, and had actually convinced Michael to come with me... he seems to think the appointments are boring and doesn't like to go with me. I can't blame him, some stranger is gonna investigate my lady parts and he doesn't like that, well I don't like it either. Anyway, I get there and there's a pretty long wait, apparently some lady decided to have a problem having her baby and needed an emergency c-section (poor thing) but that meant the doctors were all out of the office and there was only one nurse practitioner there to see all the patients. When we finally got seen they did an ultrasound instead of a non stress test. Boy was I excited for an ultrasound! I had been wanting another since I was spoiled with my first 2 appointments including an ultrasound... that's what happens when you wait til you're 17 weeks to go to the doctor for the first time. But sadly I was told it wasn't necessary and they even tried to convince me it wasn't worth it cuz you wouldn't be able to see anything. Little did I know, they were right. He just looked like a huge blob in there. I saw lots of round stuff and some dark stuff and some lighter stuff, but I have no idea what I was looking at. During the ultrasound, they looked at the position of the baby (which was perfect), the placement of my placenta (which was where it needed to be), and how much amniotic fluid was in there with the baby (there was hardly any). The nurse gave me different scores for different things and I got a 0 for fluid. Kinda depressing when you go to the doctor and they give you a grade and that grade is not only failing but a complete 0. Awesome. And apparently that's kind of a big deal. So when the nurse practitioner came in, she checked me, yay fun. I was still at a 2 or a 3 (again her words). So she decided she was going to strip my membranes. If you don't know what that is, go look it up please, cuz it's kinda gross and painful. She didn't really give me any warning and definitely didn't give me a choice. We needed to get this birthing process underway for the sake of the baby. Right before she did that, she told me "This is going to be uncomfortable (really?) do you want to hold my hand?" How weird is that? For one, you're a woman. For two, you're putting your hand somewhere my husband hasn't even touched. For three, that's just plain weird. But it did hurt and I wish I would have held Michael's hand. After that, she was sure let me know she was concerned about the lack of fluid and the fact that I'm a day overdue. And here comes that question again. "Do you want to be induced?" Then she said how much bigger the baby was going to get every day and how dangerous it could be with less and less fluid. She scared me right into it. I was already nervous about how big he was gonna be, considering my size. Then she told us they could try and fit us in today or try really hard for Friday but definitely by Saturday. How scary! I didn't know she meant right then! So she left to try to get a hold of a doctor to get his approval and say on the situation. Half an hour later she came back and told us she'd give us a call when she had heard from the doctor.
So here's what we did... We packed some snacks, the binoculars, some drinks, brought the hospital bag, and we borrowed a pass to Yellowstone from our friends. We then went and drove to Yellowstone. The way we saw it, if I had to be induced there was no way I could go into labor that day or while we were driving, right? Don't tell my doctor about that one... On the way, probably half an hour out from reaching the park, the doctor calls. At the clinic I go to there are 3 doctors and 2 nurse practitioners. One doctor is really cool, he's older and totally not intimidating as anything but a doctor. One doctor is a little too young looking and doesn't really have the bedside manner of the first doctor. The last doctor is super old and really tall and altogether really scary and since he has so much experience, what he says goes. You rotate between all the doctors so you know everyone and any one of them could deliver your baby. Makes sense, but turns out it's pretty irritating to not see the same person every time. The third doctor is the one that called. He said I needed to go in that night at 9 and they would induce me. And we continued our drive. It was about 2 when we started our trip so we figured we could stay in the park until 7 or 7:30 and still make it to the hospital by 9. It was really beautiful. All the leaves were changing and there were animals all about. We saw some elk when we first got in the park, but didn't take any pictures because we figured the way we were planning on going we'd see plenty more. Then we decided instead of driving the loop of the park that we would drive part of the way through and come out the Grand Teton entrance. We saw some buffalo and an eagle and we finally broke our streak of seeing a bear at every trip to Yellowstone. I had never been in Grand Teton National Park, just driven close enough to see the mountains and turned around. And neither Michael nor I had ever seen the view of the mountains from Jenny Lake. So we went. Here's some pictures.
Back to the birth story. We got to the hospital a couple minutes before nine and wandered around the poorly laid out Madison Memorial Hospital looking for the labor and delivery section. There were signs and even an arrow pointing toward where we thought we should go. Apparently the ward is on the second floor, but he arrow did not say that. Thank goodness there were some housekeepers walking around that could see the confusion on our faces. When the doctor, we'll call him doc 3, called and told us to come in, he only said come in at 9 and we'll get things started. I didn't know what that meant, if we were going to be checking in and staying the night or what. Yep, we were staying the night. We registered and got put in the biggest room in the ward. The nurse came in and told me to get in the awful hospital gown and she hooked me up to the monitors that kept an eye on the baby's heart rate and on my contractions. The plan was that I was going to take this pill to help thin out my cervix and get more dilated so that in the morning I would be ready for a Pitocin drip. Well, Doc 3 came in around 9:30 and said I was having normal contractions about every 4 minutes (I had no idea and didn't really feel anything more than minor menstrual cramping, if only it stayed that way). So he took this crochet hook looking thing and broke my water. I've always thought that when my water broke I was going to feel something, like maybe I had just wet my pants or even just have the feeling of water leaving me. Nope, didn't feel a thing. And there really wasn't much water to be broken anyway. Have I mentioned how old doc 3 is? Super old. And he has some kind of tremors or shaking, whatever you call it, in his hands. Imagine someone who can't keep his hands still enough to drink from a glass without spilling and he is checking your dilation status every half hour. It sucked. Labor progressed pretty quickly from there, I think anyway. I went from being a 3 when I checked in to 6 by midnight and I had no idea just how painful it could be. This whole pregnancy I had told myself I'd like to try the whole natural birth thing and see how that goes. I always kept an open mind though. And I knew if it became too painful that I might not be able to finish the job and I wouldn't be a failure if I got pain meds or an epidural. In hindsight, I know why I live in this day and age, so that I can take advantage of the wonderful medical and technology advances that make our lives easier. So, with Michael looking at me so helplessly and like he was in as much pain as I was, I decided to get some pain medication. I called for the nurse and she explained my options. I opted for pentothal (I think that's what it is) which is a narcotic pain medication that is administered through your IV. I got that and felt about half as much pain as I had before. . . for a half an hour anyway. By 12:45 I thought I was going to explode. It was the worst pain of my life and I had no idea how to cope with it. Wish I would have taken a birthing class... So I called for the nurse again and asked for an epidural. The labor and delivery ward was full that night, lots of people having babies and apparently they all had something against October. 6 babies were born that night, which meant that there were a lot of busy people, including the anesthesiologist. She had just started the process of giving an epidural to another patient, so I had to wait. 45 agonizing minutes later, she finally came in. Then she took what seemed like forever (probably ten minutes) to explain the risks and to prep me for it. Then she asked me to do the hardest thing I've ever done up to that point. I had to remain completely motionless for her to place the catheter into my epidural space in my spine. I was having contractions every minute or so and if felt like an earthquake in my lady parts every time. Proudly I was able to do that... motivated only by the relief of pain and the future relief of pregnancy. Then everything was awesome. My legs went completely numb, well more like they had fallen asleep. So I could sort of feel when someone else was touching me, but it was that uncomfortable feeling of touching a body part that's asleep. I didn't feel any more contractions after that. Not a single bit. I didn't even feel my abdomen tightening at all.
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| I can't believe he took this picture of me. And I can't believe I put it on here. |
Did I mention that you can't eat anything once they give you this? Lame. Even more lame, Michael was hungry and the nurse, who was super nice and Michael and Brenda actually know her relatives, asked him if he would like some toast. Yep, my husband ate 5 pieces of toast right in front of me while I was in labor. Well, at least he didn't leave me by myself. So by 2 o'clock I felt like I could actually get some rest and have a little more energy for getting that baby out. And I started to fall asleep. With the monitor that they use to watch the baby they are looking at the change in his heart rate. They want it to change a lot and to not be at a constant rate. So every time I got comfortable enough to fall asleep, his heart rate would level out and in would come a nurse to check me and the baby. Around 4 doc 3 came back and put a different monitor on me, well in me. These monitors were supposed to read my contractions and the baby's heart rate better because they were intrautero. I was all numbed up, so him putting those in didn't really effect me. Sure it bothered me cuz it was some strange man looking at my junk, but what can ya do. So 5:30 rolls around and I start feeling more of my contractions. The nurse comes in to check me and she decides I'm at about a 9 and a half and she tells me when I feel a contraction to start pushing. Thank goodness I had done Kegels before so I actually knew which muscles to use to have a successful push. And I'm pushing and pushing and 8 o'clock comes around, this meant a change in doctors. Yay! But I wasn't getting the first doctor with the awesome bedside manner and kind understanding that comes from seeing so many women in a kind of pain he'll never know. I got the second doctor. The young one that didn't seem super interested in having a conversation with you. But he was still better than doctor scary. He came in the room right around 8 checked me and checked the position of the baby and said that his head was turned sideways and wouldn't fit through the birth canal that way. At this point I think all of my epidural had worn off and I felt everything. It was awful. How does anyone do it without help? Kudos to you ladies, to include my mom, crazy woman! So I cried and cried for something to stop the pain and I got what I wanted... back to feeling nothing again. I'm so glad I did that, I didn't know what was about to happen. Doc 2 told me I had options. I could have help and he could put forceps in to turn the babies head and put him in the right position or we could be looking at a c-section. He knew I had been pushing for almost 3 hours and was worried if we didn't do something now that I'd use all my energy to get the head out and wouldn't be able to get the shoulders. I immediately told him I'd do anything to not have a c-section. He gloved up, they took the bed apart so everything would just fall into the trash and not on the bed, and I pushed that little guy out. The forceps that he used looked like giant metal spoons, I mean giant. He used 2, one for each side of Ivan's head and I'm pretty sure he helped pull him out too. Since I'd just had a second dose of an epidural, I didn't really feel any pain when he came out, just a lot of pressure and movement. I also didn't feel it when I tore all of my perineum and part of my rectum too. Well, it's not really that I tore my rectum, I just pushed so hard that the layers of my rectum separated and had to be sewn back together. During recovery, that was the worst part. He used 2 packs of suture to stitch me up, that likes 26 inches of suture material! After he did that, the nurses (2 of them) practically got on the bed with me and pushed so hard on my abdomen that everything I was supposed to leak out over the next few weeks all came out right then and there. Michael said it was gross and I won't go into any more detail than that. I didn't feel anything, still really drugged, and not having to worry about changing a pad every couple hours has been awesome. I've barely even spotted, I have to say that's the best thing that doctor could ever do for a woman. So let's look at the time here, doc 2 came in at 8, gloved up at 8:10 and we had a baby at 8:33. Why couldn't we have started that at 5:30?! I was so grateful that the doctors switched though, I think my chances of getting a c-section would have been about 80% higher if it had been him delivering for me. Plus, can you imagine how much worse my tear would have been if his shaky hands had been holding those forceps? I'm really not exaggerating with how bad it is.
There were so many people having babies there that we ended up staying Thursday night and Friday night in the labor and delivery room we checked into instead of being moved to the mother baby unit on Friday. We were ok with this. And we were finally able to sleep after not sleeping at all Thursday night. The room we were in didn't have a DVD player and it had an old TV in it that didn't have HDMI compatibility. This really sucked for Michael, I was a little preoccupied. Michael and I had been planning on watching How I Met Your Mother, we had borrowed it from our friends and had 4 seasons of it. That's a good way to pass the time, right? Except they were all on DVD, not only that, an entire season is on one disc. So it takes more than a DVD player, well the one we have, to read it. Michael was going to get the playstation, then we could watch that and he could play call of duty and we'd have options. But no luck. Thank goodness for cable. We don't have cable or satellite right now, too expensive, so this was a real treat to us. And the Animal Planet channel always has something interesting on in the middle of the night. The food there was really great though. People talk about hospital food being super gross, but I was way impressed. And it's a good thing the food was great cuz I sure wasn't hungry. I had no appetite at all after having been in labor for 12 hours and pushing for a fourth of that. And if it hadn't tasted so good, I wouldn't have eaten it. They gave me and Michael a steak and shrimp dinner for Friday night. It was pretty good, it would have been better if I would have eaten it when they brought it instead of 3 hours later. And they served it with raspberry cheesecake. That is by far the best cheesecake I've ever had in my entire life. It's probably the best dessert I've ever had ever. Yea, it was that good. Our meals even included miniature sparkling cider!
After the epidural wore off, the nurse came in to help me to the bathroom and get the sheets changed on my bed since we were staying the night. And she was going to help me shower if I wanted it. I got out of bed as slowly as I could, using the puppy pads they had on the bed as a Sumo wrestler's diaper, and I almost passed out. I sat back down and almost passed out again. I was a little, maybe a lot, incontinent and went all over the place and almost passed out. I tried to stand up with 2 nurses supporting me and almost passed out. They put me in a wheelchair so they could change the sheets and I almost passed out. And I did have to use the bathroom still, nurses orders. So they wheeled me ten feet across the room and helped me shuffle from the wheelchair to the toilet and I still almost passed out. I wanted a shower way bad considering just how gross I was, but all I got was a good wipe down by the super nice nurses that didn't want me to pass out on their shift. The whole bathroom ordeal, 5 hours after giving birth, took 45 minutes. And I was so worn out after that that I felt like I'd just given birth again. That night went well though. I had the nurse take Ivan at about midnight, after he had just eaten, so I could sleep. I wanted to sleep through one feeding and have them give him a bottle then bring him back and wake me up the next time he got hungry. Well, apparently he doesn't like anything but momma and he wouldn't eat the bottle. So at 3 he came back and ate and they took him again til he was hungry again.
I wasn't sure how long we were allowed to stay in the hospital, so we thought 2 nights was it and that we were going home Saturday afternoon. Doc 2 came in to check on me Saturday morning and asked what I wanted to do, so we stayed another night. And thank goodness for that! Me and Michael were able to switch from labor and delivery to the mother baby unit. Yay! They had a DVD player there, but by now we're addicted to Animal Planet and nothing else matters, well except that it was Saturday and now we could watch all the college football games. They have a "daddy fridge" there too. It's a fridge packed with pudding, yogurt, fruit juices and all sorts of stuff to snack on. While I could order anything I wanted from the cafeteria at any time, Michael had to find his own food. And I'll admit, I ordered food and ate just a little and gave the rest to Michael. He's a hungry guy. And he's got good friends that brought him food too. The room we were in there was a little smaller, but the bed was about a foot lower. The bed in the L&D was so high I had to use a stool and stand on my tip toes just to jump to kneel on the bed. It was a little ridiculous and made me not want to get up and walk around or even use the bathroom. So a lower bed that didn't need a stool helped me to get up and walk around more. And this room had a bathtub with the shower so I didn't have to ask the nurses if the jacuzzi was available, I could soak in my own room whenever I wanted. That pretty much ends the birth story and my hospital stay.
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