The Day I Became a Mom

Sorry for the delay.  Many factors led to my blogging absence, but here I am again!  Hooray!

Now, where were we...?


The story of my pregnancy and my final prenatal trip to the hospital can be found here.

So, I think I left off at, "I was going to have a baby by breakfast!"  Well, I didn't know a lot about induction, but by the time they got me from triage into a room it was 7pm.  If breakfast is at 7, that's 12 hours... that's pretty good!  I was preparing myself for a 12-hour labor that included pitocin, but no other medical interventions.  The nurse who admitted me said I'd probably want to consider an epidural since I was being induced, but that they'd work with me if I still didn't want one.  I was pretty sure I'd be able to do without one, since we'd taken a great birthing class and I had been mentally preparing myself for labor for weeks, so I just said "OK" with an if you say so kind of attitude and figured I'd do without it.

Well, 7 p.m. came and into a Labor and Delivery room we went.  My dad was sick and my brother had to work, so unfortunately, they wouldn't be there for the birth, but my mom was already on her way up because she had been planning to come up that day anyway, so she was about 2.5 hours away when I was admitted (Jeremy's family started getting things together and left when his dad got off work around 9 or 10).  Meanwhile...

Everyone and their mom (haha) was having babies that night, so after I was admitted, I didn't see the nurse again for another hour and a half, which was fine, but I was beginning to doubt my midwife's claim that I'd have a baby by breakfast.  By the time the nurse came in to start my IV of fluids (before she started the pitocin), it was 9:30, and my mom was about 15 minutes away.  She arrived and shortly thereafter, I started having contractions.  They weren't very strong, and they weren't by any means regular.  Sometimes, the only way I knew I was even having one was by looking at the monitor.

Around 10:15 or so, they increased my pitocin drip, but the contractions didn't get any stronger, longer, or more regular.  My midwife came in around 10:30 and said she was going to break my water if I didn't get more "exciting."  She came back half an hour later and declared that I was still "boring" and she'd be back in a minute to break my water.

The next 90 minutes were the craziest minutes of my entire labor.

At 11:30, my midwife broke my water, and at 12:15, I was in the most pain I've felt at least since my knee surgery in 2009, if not ever.  I had prepared for a slow progression of contractions and had coping tactics ready for that kind of labor.  But when I went from contractions that were barely noticeable, to the ones that came after my water broke--3 minutes apart, 45 seconds long, and intensely more painful than before--I felt utterly helpless.  I couldn't sit; I couldn't stand; I couldn't lay down.  I couldn't focus on anything, much less focus on not focusing on the contractions.  Four hours earlier, I was convinced I could do it without the epidural.  Now it was the only relief I could see.  I was only barely in labor, and I had no idea how much longer it was going to be, but I knew it would be longer than I could handle... which, according to my calculations at the time, was about 3 more minutes.

So, at approximately 12:25 I had my first epidural.  It took... but only on my left side.  I could still feel every contraction on my right side, which was almost worse than feeling it on both sides because now I knew the difference!  They increased the medicine, but nothing happened.  So, I got my second epidural at around 1:30.  The nice anesthetist stayed in the room with me for half an hour until he was sure it took.  Thank goodness it did.

So here we are, 2 a.m., approximately 4 (???) centimeters dilated, bedridden with an epidural and on a blood pressure monitor set to take readings every 15 minutes... not exactly the labor I had in mind, but I was excited to meet my sweet baby in only a few hours.

Fast forward an uneventful, un-exciting two hours of silence and darkness (my poor husband and mother).  I told Jeremy to tell the nurse I really needed to use the toilet, and she said, "It's the baby, I'm sure!"  She checked me and I was 9cm!!  Up to nine centimeters and I'd been at only 3 or 4 only a few hour before?! What kind of magical labor was this!?  The nurse told me to hang tight and she'd get the midwife... only 1 centimeter to go!

But, holding tight was not as easy as it sounded.  I wasn't in pain, but the pressure with each contraction was growing in intensity.  By 4:30 I didn't think I could take it anymore.  I told Jeremy to get the nurse again because I didn't know what I was going to do.  She said I was 9.5, so she upped my pitocin drip and said I should be able to start pushing any minute.

The increase in my pitocin level apparently ncreased my blood pressure, and (I'm a little blurry on the details, but something happened, and) someone handed me an oxygen mask and told me to breathe.  So, breathe I did, and 20 minutes later, at almost 5:00 on the dot, the lights all turned on, my midwife came in, and all the equipment was gathered.

I really WAS going to have a baby by breakfast!

33 minutes and 10 contractions of pushing later, Baby G made his grand, 8lb 6oz entrance into our world!  And what a beautiful world it was in that moment.

5 and a half months later, he's happily sleeping in his pack'n'play and I'm so glad, grateful, and blessed to have this sweet, innocent life to care for with Jeremy.  That day really did change my life.

I'll never forget the day I became a mom.