This Texas Baby: The Birth Story - Part II

Alright, lets see if I can wrap this story up in this post! I imagine it will at least take me one more post after this though...

When I got to the hospital around 5 I went on up to the l&d floor and rang the bell to be let in. When the nurse came on over the intercom she asked who I was there to see and it was the weirdest feeling saying "no one, I'm here to be admitted" she got all excited and said "oh, ok, great! Common in!" In I went and was placed in delivery room number 3 and was introduced to my first nurse of the night, with it being so close to shift change this nurse did not last very long... just long enough to give me on hell of a bruise on the back of my left hand from trying to insert an IV and failing. That bruise hurt me all night long when Robert would hold my hands and rub the back of them with his thumbs during contractions. I could never muster up enough energy to tell him that it was killing me though! After the back of the hand IV failed another nurse came in and tried to put on in on the side of my wrist, she was able to get several tubes of blood but then the vein blew. When she told me that and said they were going to have to try another spot I almost lost it. I think it was just a combination of everything hitting me at once that this was actually happening, I was about to have a baby. It also didn't help that I was freaking out and feeling terrible about not calling Robert sooner in the day to have him there to hold my hand during the IV. See, I've never been in the hospital so it was all a new experience to me and Robert has had several hospital stays in his life so he is my expert. I feel like I am just babbling on about this part so I am going to stop and move on.

After the IV was finally inserted and capped off I was left alone for a little bit. Long enough to call my mom and dad and let them know what was going on. My mom and I decided that she would wait until the morning to come in from Houston as we did not think things were going to progress fast. Well that was a mistaken thought and later, even now still, I regret not telling her to go on and come that night.

I also spoke to Robert again and he let me know that his mom and stepdad were on their was up from San Antonio. Robert's stepdad happened to have a work conference in San Antonio that week and his mom came along in the hopes that Sadie would make her appearance while they were there. After getting the news from the doctor that they were going to induce the following week she almost did not come along! But now she is very glad she decided to go on and come.

MIL and SFIL got to the hospital around 6:30, about the same time the nurse came in to start me on the pitocin. Robert finally got to the hospital around 8/8:30. It was the best feeling ever to see him walking though that door, I just wanted to hug him and not let go. Around that time I would say I started noticing the contractions. It started as just mild cramping, similar to period cramps. the worst part of that time was having to keep semi still and in one position due to the monitors hooked up to me. Whenever the contractions started all I wanted to do was move around, change sides, get up etc. But doing any of that made the monitors move and made it appear that the baby was in distress, so a nurse was coming in every time to readjust the monitors. Ha, at one point the nurse got mad at me because I still had a waist, can you believe that? I think she said something like "oh, that's the problem, you still have a waist curve so that is causing the monitor to ride up." Haha, so sorry I still had a waist!

Around 10:30 or so MIL and SFIL left to run out to the house to take care of the chickens and dogs and go get some food. I think about the food, they might of gone right after Robert arrived for food, it's all a blur. After they left I decided I needed some sort of pain relief. In my head it made the most sense to go on and use one of the IV drugs, that way I could try and get some sleep and it would have plenty of time to go through mine and Sadie's system before it came time to actually have her. If you ask Robert he would say that he wishes his mom and stepdad never left, he said I was doing great while they were there but as soon as they left I lost it. I can totally believe this, I don't like causing a ruckus or anything like that in front of other people so I can see how I was keeping a good grip on things with them there. Robert's mom even said that later on in the night when things got really bad for me I was still super calm and quiet and I never yelled at anybody and even when I did upset I would just whisper at people. I think a lot of that was because I could not make the effort to be loud and scream at anyone!

After getting the IV drugs I went though a cycle of sleeping/passing out and waking up in the middle of a contraction with the drugs wearing off around every hour and a half. If I could go back I would avoid the IV drugs, I believe that waking up while a contraction was happening was the worst thing I could of done, it gave me no time to prepare or practice breathing or do anything other than be in immense amounts of pain. At one point I was so sick of it I broke down and asked for an epidural. In order to get an epidural my doctor required that I be at least 3 cm dialted so the nurse checked me and I was only a 1. It was the most heartbreaking news at that point, but I just kept going and powering though. Thankfully I did not have any back labor, which I have heard is terrible. All of my pain was centered low in my abdomen, like the worst period cramps ever. I kept trying different positions, standing up, leaning over things, switching sides but nothing really helped. All that helped was squeezing Robert's hand/arm and doing my best to take deep even breaths. I could tell when I lost control of my breathing I lost control of the pain, and that was the worst.

The funniest part about the whole night was how freaking hot I was. The ac was turned all the way down in my room but I still remember sweating at some points. I also remember Robert sitting in the chair next to me huddled under a blanket his mom brought and his mom sitting in a chair with her big jacked on over her sweatshirt and gloves on! Robert's mom told me later that whenever I was up moving and she would see my bare back in the gown she just wanted to come over and rub me to keep me warm, makes me laugh cause I do not remember feeling cold until after I got the epidural.

Around 4am I asked the nurse to check me again and see how close I was to 3 cm. Sadly, she told me I was only at 2. Now, I do not recall what time she checked me before and I was only a 1, so I have no idea how much time had passed, I think that check was around 2am though. Amazingly a few minutes later she came back in and said that she called my doctor and my doctor said that she would go on and approve administering the epidural!

After hearing that I could finally get an epidural I felt like things were finally going to be ok and bearable. However, Robert did not feel that way. He was very concerned that if I did receive the epidural it would just slow my progress down even more and would for sure see me ending up with a c-section. He kept asking me over and over again if I was sure that was what I wanted. I am glad he did, he knew how much I wanted to try and go with out major drug intervention, so he was just doing his part as my advocate. All I kept thinking was if it's 4am and I am only 2 cm dilated after being on pitocin for 10 hours how in the world is an epidural going to slow it down much more!?! Plus, I was also thinking things were going to end in a c-section no matter what so why spend anymore time in crazy amounts of pain if they are going to have to numb me anyways for the surgery?

I will stand by my decision to get an epidural for the rest of my life. I think it was the best decision I made during my labor.

Once my doctor approved the epidural the anesthesiologist came in to see me and dished out the second most heartbreaking news of the night. I would have to ingest a whole bag of IV fluids before he could administer the epidural. At that point I had just finished my fist bag of fluids, yes my first bag, the one they hooked me up to at 6pm the night before. How the world was I going to make it through a second bag! Turns out they had the first bag on a pretty slow drip, so the nurse opened the drip on the second one all the way and then the anesthesiologist came in and put what looked like a blood pressure cuff on the bag to pump the fluids into me even faster. As soon as I had the fluids in me the anesthesiologist got me all hooked up with the epidural I was like a different person! I could talk and have a conversation and most importantly I could sleep!

After the epidural got started the nurse did an internal check one more time and I was up to 3 cm, not sure on effacement and my cervix was still facing the back. It was 5am. After 12 hours all I had done was dilate 3 cm.