The last two days and nights I slept solid beginning my 37th week of being pregnant. Tues 1/11/11 I slept all morning into the afternoon. I finally dragged myself out of bed at 2:00pm and went to the bathroom. I was walking back to the bedroom when I coughed and thought I either peed my pants or my water broke. I was in a bit of denial that my water had broken so I called Rachel, my sister, to ask her advice. She reassured me that my water had broken. I asked her if she thought I should call Jon right away because he was at the clinic with patients and I was worried that my contractions wouldn’t start for awhile. She told me to call him right away and the labor and delivery nurse who I hadn’t called yet either. I was hesitant to call L&D because I wanted to labor as long as I could at home before coming in. I knew if I called and told them my water had broken they would want me to come right in. I called Jon and told him what was going on and he said he would talk to his clinic instructor and come right home.
I called my good friend Anisha at 3:00 pm who came over to help me with last minute things while Jon was on his way home. I had originally wanted her to do my dishes for me because I didn’t want to leave the house dirty, but once my contractions started I could have cared less about dirty dishes. Instead she ended up timing my contractions, which I hadn’t started doing yet. Right away she told me that my contractions were one and a half to two minutes apart and that I really needed to call L&D. I called the number that luckily I had already put into my phone. The clerk answered and I told her my water had broken. She asked for my medical record number which I didn’t have with me and wasn’t about to go searching though my purse for. When I told her that she did the biggest sigh in the world and in the most annoyed voice said that she guessed she could look it up by my name and birthday. I was in a lot of pain by this time and wasn’t able to talk during contractions. The clerk put the nurse on the line to whom I had to re-explain the whole situation to. She put me on hold for what felt like hours and returned saying something along the lines of that the doctor wants me to come in now because it “sounds like you’re in labor”…..duh! She said we should come in and be checked, but if we had a lot of gear to not bring it in because they didn’t have a lot of beds and might have to send us somewhere else. When Jon got home he started frantically packing the last minute stuff we had put on a list. He was running around from room to room occasionally frantically yelling out “where did I put the list?”
Meanwhile I was kneeling on the ground draped over the ball. Rachel called me back to see how I was doing and I just remember telling her that I couldn’t do it anymore. She stayed on the phone and talked me through some contractions. It was so helpful because we had both studied the same relaxation program and so she knew the words to use to me to help relax.
Jon and Anisha kept on telling me we had to go, but I didn’t want to go because I was in pain and didn’t want to move! Finally we went outside where it was rainy. I had to stop on the stairs halfway down and kneel on the wet floor to get though a contraction on the ball. Then we hustled to the car before another one could come. I was planning on getting in the back seat where I would have more room to be comfortable, but I forgot the car seat was there. So I laid the front set down as far as it would go and draped my arms over while kneeling on the seat. I was basically on all fours. I remember every bump we drove over I would yell.
We pulled up to the front of the hospital, not really sure what to do. We hadn’t planned this part out yet. Jon suggested to Double Park the car in order to get me up to L&D and would then go move it, but I didn’t want him to ever leave me. As we were paused outside the front entrance, somebody came up to us and told us we had a flat tire. We couldn’t believe it! Jon decided to drive up to the ER and drop me off. I got out and sat on my ball while Jon explained to the receptionist what was going on. The manager from the ER came out and showed Jon where he could park the car. While Jon was parking the car the manager guy was trying to crack jokes to me but I was not having it. I was so annoyed. Jon came back just in time for the L&D nurse to take us upstairs. They made us stop at the front clerk desk to check in. I realized that I had forgotten my purse and didn’t have my insurance card or ID. It was the same clerk I had talked to on the phone….lucky us.
At 4:30pm we walked to the triage room, which is kind of hazy. Luckily we were the only ones in the room at that time. I got into my hospital gown and was so nauseated I ran to the bathroom and threw up in the sink. I remember it was green from the jolly ranchers that I had been sucking on. When I got back to the bed the nurse who also happened to be the same one I had talked to on the phone, hooked me all up to get a test strip. I remember Jon getting a hold of Liesel my doula and our friend from church. She rushed over. It seemed like she was there in a few minutes. The nurse came back in to check me and told me I was dilated to a four or five.
I freaked out a bit then because I felt like I should have been farther along than that. Lielsel and Jon kept on saying how wonderful it was that I was dilated that far so quickly and that my body was doing a great job. I just kept on saying that I couldn’t do it and wanted an epidural. The triage nurse asked Jon what my birth plan was and he told her I wanted basically no interventions. Meanwhile I was in the background saying that I changed my mind and wanted an epidural. Jon told me later that I kept on saying, “I can hear you!” while he was talking to the nurse. Jon explained to her that I had said in my plan that if I asked for an epidural I wanted to wait for a half an hour get rechecked and then decide from there. I remember leaning on the bed and going though a contraction with a barf bag up to my face puking my brains out.
The nurse came in and said that they had the delivery room all ready for us we just had to walk there. I remember thinking she was crazy to expect me to walk anywhere, but I must have done it. I don’t really remember that walk either. When we got to the room I asked to be checked again. This time I was a six. I was very distraught with this news. Leisel kept on reminding me that it was every fast to dilate one cm in an hour. I got off the bed and I leaned forward onto it with Jon and Leisel switching off rubbing my back. I was still having a ton of pain during contractions and was having a hard time mentally getting on top of it. We decided that I could get a shot of a pain med Fentynl to help me get on top of the pain. Right away I felt more in control…a bit more relaxed. I could definitely still feel a lot of pain, but I was able to break the freaking out/pain cycle and started accepting it instead of fighting it so hard. Once I was more I control Jon suggested for me to get in the shower. Someone put my ball in there and I sat on it while Jon sprayed hot water on my back. I was in the shower for about an hour until I started feeling pressure during the contractions. I told the nurse and she said to let her know once the pressure didn’t go away in between contractions. Only a few more contractions later I felt like I had to poop and let everybody know about it! They said it was time to get to the bed to check me again. I got up on the bed and the nurse said I was “complete” which I guess is completely dilated and totally effaced. The doctor came in and started gowning up….it was time to start pushing.
At 8:00pm my nurse coached me through how she wanted me to push. I pushed a few times on my back, ten seconds three times during each contraction. I tried a bunch of different positions to push but ended up on my back again. I got discouraged when the doctor told me that every time I pushed the baby would come out a little bit and then go right back up… that she was stuck behind my pelvis and I needed to push harder. I remember thinking there was no way I was going to have the energy or strength to push her out. I couldn’t even make it to the ten seconds on the first push let a lone on the third. I remember seeing myself in the mirror when I pushed and there was sweat dripping down my face, which was super swollen. When I pushed, the pain seemed to ease up. There came a point where the pain and pressure never went away and that was supper intense. I think Opal was crowning at that point. By then I was trying to push all the time because I wanted the pain to go away. Then I heard Leisel say, “Oh look at her dark hair!”. I knew I was close then and was pushing as hard and as frequent as I could without passing out.
At 9:06pm somebody yelled that her head was out, but I still had pain and the doctor said to push again to get her shoulders out. Once she was all the way out I felt immediate relief. They put her right up onto me and I couldn’t believe how wonderful that feeling was to hold her. The doctor clamped the cord and Jon cut it.
I held Opal a bit longer while they were drying her off. She was kind of blue which was freaking me out, but everybody kept on reassuring me she was ok. I think she had her eyes open. The nurse took her to do her APGAR scores.
I told the doctor I didn’t want her to pull my placenta out yet, she said I was hemorrhaging and needed to get it out so my uterus could start contracting. She tugged at it a bit and this gigantic warm gooshy thing came out and I felt great! Then I heard the doctor tell one of the nurses to give me a shot of pitocin, but I said that I hadn’t wanted any and was going to breast feed instead to increase contractions naturally since I didn’t have an epidural. She said I was bleeding too much so I said go ahead.
They brought Opal back to me and I fed her for a bit. Her hands and feet were still very blue, which was totally freaking me out, but the Doctor and nurses said it was normal for newborn babies to shunt their blood to their vital organs which can leave their hands and feet blue. The nurse that was checking Opal out said she didn’t like the grunting sound she was making and took her back over to check her out. All her vital signs were good, but they wanted to observe her in the NICU for twenty-four hours. I was so exhausted I could barely keep up with what was going on. Jon went with Opal and Leisel stayed to help me get cleaned and packed up.
The nurse wheeled me to the NICU and little Opal was laying in a warmer with tubes connected to her everywhere. I saw they had an IV in her and asked the nurse how many attempts it took to place it. They kind of paused and said about four times… we counted the poke marks on her hands and feet which looked a lot more like six… In the NICU they said they had done blood cultures, an IV with fluid and a chest x-ray. We were very against the chest x-ray, but they convinced us that it was necessary to rule out any infections. They also gave her antibiotics just in case. I was pretty upset about the chest x-ray exposing her already only a few hours old, but decided it was better to be safe than sorry
I nursed Opal, which was hard because she had so many wires hooked up to her. That night I couldn’t sleep I had soo much energy. Jon on the other hand was zonked. I went down to the NICU every three hours to feed Opal. It was really weird not having her with us. The next day we went to the doctor’s rounds where they said once the twenty-four hour blood culture came back negative she could come with us back to our room. We were soo happy to have her with us the second night of her life.
According to the doctors Opal was just having a hard time “transitioning”. They said she had just come out really fast and was trying to adjust. It was our first night with her and there was a lot of waking up, feeding, changing of diapers and attempts at swaddling. It was wonderful. By the third day we were ready to be discharged.
Rachel and my Mom had driven to Sacramento and stayed with some friends the day before to break up the drive. They headed down to meet us at the hospital. They came at the perfect time when we were getting close to checking out. They helped us get Opal dressed and took pictures of us and helped us to the car, which Jon had thrown a spare tire on while we were in the hospital.
