July 15, 2010

Wow! I have not posted in a long time.....

Here's how it happened...

July 14th (my due date) I woke up at about 4:45 to a....that's right a contraction! Yay! I thought-I am totally having this baby today-even better ON my due date! :) I laid in bed a little while-about an hour, emailed Adam, told him that today may be the day! About 6:30 I went into my mom and sister's room and they were stirring-well my mom was-and I told her I was feeling contractions-yes! We all got up and got ready thinking we would be going to the hospital soon-I took a shower and got cleaned up-put on makeup (that was all part of my "plan"). I did call work and tell them I wasn't coming in, that I was having contractions...

It got to be around lunch time and the contractions were still there, and getting stronger but not closer together-they were sporadic ranging from 2-7 min apart. The hospital told me not to come in until the contractions had been 2-3 min apart for at least 2 hours-so waiting is what I did. Well, they started to get STRONGER that night-MUCH stronger, but not any closer together still sporadic. It got to be about 1:00 AM, I couldn't sleep and I was in pain my back was really hurting and I couldn't focus on anything. We went to the hospital-checked in about 2AM, they checked me and I was dilated to 3, but the contractions weren't close enough for them to keep me-"go home" is what they told me. They did, however, give me the option of tylenol with codeine or ambien, I took the tylenol. I got home, took the meds and laid down-It helped a little, but I still didn't get much sleep-the tylenol numbed the contractions that weren't very strong but the super strong ones-it didn't do ANYTHING to ease THAT pain.

I got up the next morning around 5:45 or 6-went downstairs and tried to eat some breakfast. I put two bites in my mouth and said "nope-this isnt going to work" I felt like I would throw it all back up-so I didn't eat-ANYTHING ALL DAY. My back was hurting with so much pain-I thought I was going to rip in half-litereally. All I could think was-"WHY? WHY did I think I wanted to do this?" All morning-I was in severe pain with the contractions about 4-5 min apart. Finally at 2 pm I said let's go back to the hospital-I can't stand this. I was in tears all morning from the pain of the contractions-I laid on the floor and tried to ignore the pain, I did ALL the laboring positions, I went for walks, tried to go walk on the treadmill since the middle of the day was WAYY too hot to go outside, etc. NOTHING helped-nothing worked to ease the pain. So we got to the hospital around 2 pm. Again, they checked me, I was at a 5 and they told me to go hoome AGAIN!!!! I burst in to tears again- they told me to go walk for two hours and then come back to the hospital...2 hours? what? I can barely stand up straight and you expect me to go for a walk?

We talked about going to the gym and walking on the treadmill-the nurse advised not to do that since I might fall, we discussed going outside-well, come to find out there was a major dust storm outside (the equivalent of a regular rain storm anywhere else)-this did prove to be a problem later on too-but we will get to that part. So, we came to the executive decision to jsut walk around the hospital. We left L and D, walked to the car in the parking lot, and headed back inside-we made it upstairs until I couldn't go anymore. They told me to try to eat since I wouldn't be able to eat anything once i was admitted until I had her. My mouth was SO dry, I tried to eat some goldfish I think I ate 2, then I tried to eat some saltine crackers I probably had 1 of those-and before I knew it, I was throwing up ALL over the floor of the hospital-and it filled an entire target bag FULL of nothing but-water. That was all I had eaten all day so that is all that was coming out. The nurse who examined me-just 45 min before saw me throwing up in the hallway and told me to go ahead and go back up to L & D. We headed back up there.

You have to ring a doorbell to get into the Delivery unit, protection of the babies, etc. so, the nurse saw me standing there and didn't even ask me any questions. The lady who checks you in, took my ID again, and it took her FOREVER to enter me in the system, I was like COME ON-I have been in here twice already-I KNOW you KNOW my name and probably Adam's SS by heart now! AFter what seemed like forever-we got to the exam room, they examined me and guess what-I was dilated to a 7! She said "oh wow-we need to get you admitted" well "no duh!" I wanted to scream cuss words at them. At this point I was so tired of them asking "On a scale of 1 to 10 how is your pain?" Well, let me tell you that my pain is a 10!!! I have NEVER had this much pain in my LIFE. The nurse tried to tell me that it wasn't really a 10, and that I didn't know, and I said," have you ever had a watermelon come out of a pea sized hole? Have you ever been in labor? Have YOU ever been pregnant? I didn't think so, don't try to tell me what I am feeling." I just burst into a steady flow of tears and my mom and sister kept saying "its ok, you are going to get medicine now!" but I was crying because I was so happy to finally be admitted......

They took me over to my room and they were scurrying around like there was a fire going on. I kept telling them I wanted the epidural, epidural. They said "OK just a little while, you need to wait" "WAIT? I have been waiting for the past two days! I am DONE waiting" I was getting SOO mad. I hadn't been in that room for 5 minutes when my water broke ALL over everywhere! EWWWW! I just started crying even more-I said "What does it feel like when your water breaks? because I think mine just did!" They changed the linens again-I changed my gown again.... This was all at about 5pm. They got the IV started and the room set up, they came in and asked if I wanted a pain medication-YES! As soon as they started that I felt 100% better it was AMAZING-It made me calm-I could breathe, I felt really relaxed-something I hadn't felt in the past 36 hours.....

Meanwhile, they told me I might not be able to get the epidural-I was too far, AND remember that dust storm-well there was a bad accident on the highway and they brought the people there-so the lab was backed up and they didn't know how long it would take to get my lab work back-which they had to have in order to start the epidural for me. "WHAT?!" NO WAY I said, NO WAY! I am NOT doing this without the epidural. My mom started to get mad as well.... They said they would walk my lab work down and wait on it-my mom said "RUN".

They went ahead and sent in the anethesiologist, and she had me sign all the paperwork and she got set up. About 45 minutes later she came back in to start the epidural. MY FAVORITE PERSON IN THE WHOLE WORLD. She gave me a pump for it and everything-I could give myself more or less, etc. It didn't hurt bad at all-the worst part was the tape they used to tape it all up-that sucked especially when I got ready to leave and they had to pull it off.... I had one dead spot-and she said she could take out the line and do it again, but that it might not work at all, or that it could work less effectively as it was currently-I said forget it-i will endure this pain because it is still 99% better than what it was before-I can do this. I remember being really cold and shaking the whole time, but I was happy-that's all I cared about. I got the epidural at about 6.

The doctor came in and told me to sleep as much as I can, he went over everything with me. I had actually never seen that Doctor-the one I didn't see at all-would be the one I would get-but he ended up being really good-no complaints and it is true what everyone says-you don't even care WHO it is down there as long as they get the baby out-it does not matter one bit. He checked me again and I was an 8-he said "we are going to have a birthday party...tonight!" :)

I laid in the bed just relaxing-thinking about everything. The doctor came back in and checked me at about 8:30 and said we were ready! They got everything set up and by 9 I was pushing! (Basically I had the epidural for about 3 hours before starting to push!) I pushed for about 2 hours-It didn't seem like that long to mee-It seemed like a shorter period than that-It was the drugs I am sure...I pushed and pushed-but before I started pushing i gave myself a little extra epidural which wasn't smart because I gave myself so much that I couldn't feel ANYTHING-and I couldn't tell if I was pushing right or wrong. Which I think is why I had to for so long. Finally, she came out and it was awesome! She was quiet at first and then screamed. Her color was great-no marks or anything on her either-she looked great! They cleaned her off and cleaned me up-about an hour and a half later everyone was gone and it was just us-they did come in every 15 min and massage my stomach-which didn't hurt too bad-they made it seem like it was going to be awful but I didn't think so. That night we didn't get very much sleep at all-she slept great but not us. I tried to feed her after getting off the phone with Adam. She didn't want anything to do with it-so I tried later, and tried again and again and FINALLY she took to it. Now she does great! :)

I was admitted on Thursday evening and was released Friday afternoon, but Avery couldn't get released until Saturday morning, so we all stayed until Saturday morning and went home July 17th.

Ok so that is the painful, yet amazing experience of her birth.

At first, I told Adam there was NO WAY I was doing that again-NO WAY. He was never going to get to experience a delivery because I wasn't doing it again. But, the further I get away from it, the more I realize how much of a miracle it is and how amazing it is and I think I would probably do it again-but I want to be induced and I want the epidural immediately-as soon as I can get it. I can't believe I am saying that......