Finally, my birth story (long)

mnj1983 · #1 June 5th, 2009, 10:17 PM

Saturday, May 30, I woke up feeling weird. DH and I had already planned on going to a town about 45 minutes away for shopping (by myself while he was at a golf lesson) and for a "last date" to Pappadeaux (one of our favorites). Before we left I wasn't sure I should go because I just felt weird but I figured, if I went into labor while he was there, I'd have to wait for him to get home anyway. I also went ahead and went because I didn't want to regret not going if nothing happened. We had a great day and sure enough nothing happened. I did feel really weird all day though but that stopped when we got home around 8 p.m. that night.

We went to bed as normal but I told DH that I thought we'd have the baby in the middle of the night after that day. I of course got up a million times to go pee in the night but when I got up at 3:53 a.m., I noticed pink on the paper. I got on the computer and started googling spotting to see if it was a sure sign of labor. Then I got on JM to busy myself and posted that I thought it'd be happening. Soon after, I got some major diarrhea then googled that too. While on the computer I started having contractions (maybe a 4 or 5 out of 10 on the pain scale). I decided to time them on that free contraction counter website and they were getting pretty regular at about 4-6 minutes apart. I decided to go ahead and eat some toast since I was sure I wouldn't be able to eat much that day.

Around 5 a.m. my contractions got MUCH worse. I started having to use the relaxation techniques I learned in my childbirth class. The best one for me was kneeling over my glider ottoman and rocking. Finally at 6 a.m. I woke up DH so he could help me time. He wasn't very good at it because he wanted to help me relax (he said I was chattering and moaning like I had the devil in me) and didn't always go hit the time when he needed to for starting or stopping. The contractions were ranging from 3-5 minutes apart and lasting about a minute.

Finally around 6:30, they were unmanageable and we started loading the truck and headed for the hospital. DH was hungry so we went through the donut shop drive through. I had a contraction before we make it to the window and right after we pulled away. Good thing it wasn�t while we were there. We checked into the hospital around 7 a.m. and I got a pain killer pretty quickly. I felt totally dazed first then drunk. My doctor came in and I don�t remember even talking to him but was told that I was loudly telling him to call Stephanie (his daughter and my good friend) to tell her I was in labor.

I didn�t ask for it but by 10 a.m. I had my epidural and my doctor broke my water soon after. I also threw up right after that and lost that precious piece of toast that was supposed to sustain me through the day. The rest of the day involved DH and I sleeping on and off and getting checked. We told people we were at the hospital but to not come until later. It was actually pretty relaxing all day.

At 5:25 we started pushing. It was easy at first and pretty uneventful. After an hour and a half, I was really frustrated. I kept watching the clock wondering where my baby was. She was face up so my doc said she was going slower. I was so tired that I was falling asleep between contractions. At the two hour mark her head had come out and my doctor let me touch it. That gave me the strength to finish. She got stuck at her shoulders, which took 10 minutes to get out.
She weighed 8 pounds and 11 ounces and was 19 inches long with a head full of hair.

Meanwhile, in the room across the hall�A woman had come in at 33 weeks. They planned on transferring her to Dallas to a bigger hospital and just as soon as the paramedics got there, her water broke. I was being sewn up and was still in the stirrups when the nurse came in and said that the water had broken. Seconds later she ran in and said that the cord prolapsed. My Doctor got up and told the nurse to leave me the way I was and ran out of the room. All I hear is screaming like you hear in the movies and doctors and nurses telling the woman to relax. It only lasted a couple of minutes because the baby came out really fast. It was half the size of mine. Turned out that she is a surrogate for the second time to a family in Australia and it was her sixth child.

My family of course knows nothing of the woman and knew that I started pushing after five but never heard anything more. Imagine their surprise when paramedics came in looking for labor and delivery. Then imagine their shock when right after DH sends out a text saying that she was born, a page goes out over the hospital that respiratory is needed in the nursery stat. As of the time the baby was taken by emergency helicopter to Dallas, it was doing ok.

Now we�re home and besides the sleepless nights, everything is great.