THE BIRTH

birth stories are full of what people consider TMI. i'm a pretty open person and don't believe in the whole TMI thing. but if talking about pushing, rectal pressure, and a dilating cervix isn't your thing, skip this one. so here is the story of the weirdest/scariest thing i've ever done.

here is some pre-birth info. i went into my 38 week appointment on wednesday the 11th and was dilated 3cm and 70% effaced. my doctor said "let's have this baby!" and sent me home with a mission to get moving. she was convinced she wouldn't see me at our appointment next week. i decided that friday would be my last day at work and told david he better start walking me (as if i was his dog). we walked. and walked. and walked. i hauled my butt up every steep hill in our neighborhood till my legs felt like they were going to fall off. i did squats. i danced around the apartment. but i got nothing.

view from one of my walks

i obviously made it to my next appointment. she told me i was maybe at 4cm and then stripped my membranes (spoiler alert: that did nothing). my doctor was heading out of town the next day and wanted to schedule an induction for me before she left. we set the induction date for my original due date (june 24) at 7am and told me to call the hospital at 6am to check on my status. she explained that i didn't need to wait a week past my due date to get induced because my cervix was already so engaged. obviously nothing happened before the 24th so induction it was!

at 6:00am i woke up after a terrible night's sleep and gave the hospital a call. they told me to call back at 9:00am. ugh. we tried to go back to sleep. david succeeded at this but i failed. obviously. at 9:00am i called the hospital back with pretty low hopes and nurse judy told me they were swamped and to call back at 1:00pm. at this point i had given up all hope of going to the hospital and was actually able to fall asleep for a few hours. after i wake up we decide to go eat lunch. i went with pizza. duh. and since i wasn't going to the hospital that day why not top it off with some ice cream at bi-rite? i was scraping my bowl clean, getting ready to call the hospital when the hospital actually called me. judy tells me to come on in. i was totally shocked. so we threw some last minute items into our bag and hopped on the scooter to head to the hospital.

yes, i rode the scooter for 9 months. go ahead. think what you want. 

we checked in at 1:37. i only know the exact time because i had to write it three different times in the paper work. i signed some papers and got a lovely wrist band and then we were just waiting for our nurse. then we met susan. the nurse that would be getting us all set up but leaving us at 4pm when her shift ended. 

we went up stairs and got set up in our room. then i answered a million questions about my medical history.  i got an IV and got fluids going. susan's shift ended at 4:00pm and we got pam who was new so she was accompanied by nurse shelby. 

getting poked

there was a lot of sitting around until we saw the doctor at 6:00pm. she came in and broke my water at 6:05pm. i don't remember her name and i am glad her shift was about to end because i didn't like her. once my water broke i started finally feeling contractions. at about 6:30pm i met dr. huang. she came in and told me i could get an epidural as soon as i wanted. i immediately liked her. at 7:00pm the anesthesiologist came in. he was being shadowed by a lady from china who was learning about american medicine. i would say getting the epidural was the worst part of the whole night. with two nurses, two anesthesiologist and david all huddled around me i was so hot. i could not stop sweating while i was getting the epidural. that also might be why my heart rate shot up really high. 

i didn't like the feeling of the epidural as it was taking effect. i was wondering how in the world i was going to push a baby out if i couldn't feel the bottom half of my body. after about an hour i could wiggle my toes and felt a lot better. the nurses told me i needed to rest. which was actually impossible since i was shaking uncontrollably from nerves. so i just watched a lot of tv. PBS had this animal special that was being narrated by a soothing voice that put me to sleep for a little bit. it was over too soon. they checked me and i was progressing fast enough that i didn't need any pitocin. 

at midnight we had another nurse shift change and we met colleen. who was amazing. it was around this time that i started to feel pressure in my butt. dr. huang came in and said we wouldn't start pushing till 4:00am which was really depressing news. 4:00am was SO far away. at 1:15am they checked me and i was dilated 10cm but the baby still needed to drop down a little further. at 2:15am colleen told me that she needed to take her 30 minute break but that we could start pushing when she got back. she asked me if i wanted to have the anesthesiologist come back and up my dose or stick with what i had. i opted to stick with what i had. i immediately started shaking again when she mentioned the word pushing. at 2:45am colleen was back and started prepping the room for the delivery. 

ready to go 

at 3:00am i started pushing. by about 4:00am i started to feel my contractions which was actually helpful in terms of knowing when it was time to push. colleen told me she could release some more juice from the epidural but that it probably wouldn't come in time to do much. had i known how uncomfortable things were going to be after the baby came out i would have told her to hit me one more time. colleen was amazing. i can't imagine doing that with any other nurse. she was perfect. at about 4:15am she paged the doctor. i think i had a total of three more contractions and then david told me it was a boy and then we met baby ari. the official birth time was 4:25am, though david claims it was actually 4:22am. an hour and a half of pushing and i had a baby laying on my chest. 

i expected the moment he hit my chest to be different. i felt so many different emotions it was almost numbing. i was also slightly distracted by the placenta pulling and gauze stuffing happening down below that i wasn't fully enjoying the moment with baby ari. in this moment i wished i had asked for a little more juice 30 minutes earlier.  

while ari was still on my chest, i got to facetime with my parents. though i didn't get to see the look on their faces like david did, it was fun to listen to them gush over this new baby laying on my chest. the next few hours were a blur. things didn't feel real until we were moved into our room and we were were all snuggling in my bed. i can't believe it's already been two weeks!