Its been six weeks since baby Madeline was born, I have been so busy adjusting to this life altering event that I have completely neglected this blog. Thats ok because I will back track and tell a bit about what has occurred in the last six weeks. So here it goes....My child birthing story or at least how I remember it.
Sunday October 18th, despite the fact that I was on doctor ordered bedrest, I was going stir crazy at home so Daniel decided to make me get off the couch and get dressed so that we could go to Micheals art supplies and I could get some things for a few projects that I wanted to do for the nursery(which I still havent done but will get around to it eventually). I had read that most women that are about to be ushered into motherhood go through a phase of "nesting" where they have a burst of energy right before going into labor and they run around the house cleaning and getting things ready for their new addition. I had been looking for my "burst", but I guess I didnt recognize it, I didnt realize it was going to come in the form of Micheals art supplies and burgers at Red Robin. Thats ok, I never was one for proper preparation anyway. After dinner, we decided it would be a night of movies and ice cream. As I waited for Daniel to return with the ice cream, I laid on the couch to get a bit of rest. The second he walked through the door, I sat up on the couch and heard the strangest little "pop" noise. I wasnt exactly certain what the sound was but for some reason I was afraid to move. Daniel came over to see what was wrong with me and I could feel a warm gush all over my thighs, I was too petrified to look down to see what it was. I guess I watch too many movies and was scared to death that it was going to be blood. Words of wisdom if you are pregnant: dont watch the movies Revolutionary Road or Benjamin Button, both have scenes where pregnant women start profusely bleeding. Anyway, Daniel reassured me it was not blood, and we knew it was time. After calling the doctor to let them know we were on our way, I got up, Daniel helped me into a change of clothes which didnt matter because in a few seconds they were wet too, I put my flip flops on and we ran out the door. Baby Maddie was on her way, 3 weeks early and completely unexpected. We hadnt even had a chance to pack a bag for the hospital stay.
It was a very crisp autumn night and my wet skirt and wet flip flops werent keeping me very warm. When we walked from the parking lot of the hospital to the ER I was struggling to keep my slippery soaking wet flip flops on my feet and I remember expecting to walk into that ER and that everyone there was going to have the sense of urgency that we had. I thought they would rush to me with a wheel chair and whisk me up to Labor and Delivery "STAT!". Much to the contrary, the women behind the desk moved at a snails pace, they barely raised an eyebrow at the fact that my water had broke and that I had a baby coming soon! I guess this was a fairly common occurance to them. I remember thinking I am about to have this baby any second and these women were more concerned with finding out if I had contacted my doctor! Forget the doctor, Lady! I am having a baby NOW! Yeah, right!
So we got up to the room, filled out all the paper work, put the silly gowns on and found out that I was 4 centimeters dialated, and 100% effaced, I couldnt believe it, we were just about halfway there. I figured I would be having that baby in a matter of a couple hours, and completely natural since I had gotten to four centimeters without pain, how much worse could it get, right? Oh how wrong I was. I had no idea it was going to take 16 hours of labor and 2 hours of hard pushing. It was both the most excrutiating and the most fantastic event of my life.
The funny thing is I had gone over this day a hundred times in my head and had planned it out to a T. Here is how I had imagined it: I was going to have a gradual labor and spend most of it at home. I had read that home was the best environment for a calm labor, being in a comfortable environment would help me with the pain. Then as the contractions got closer together, we would head to the hospital where I would have a painful, yet manageable, completely natural child birth, no drugs. I even was hopeful that I would have the baby standing up because everything I had read said that it was the optimal position to give birth. I was going to be calm and in control. I had done my research, I thought I was completely prepared. I was going to accept the fact that it was painful but that this pain was temporary and normal and that I could do it. Oh man, that birth plan flew out the window quickly.
Once my water broke, I knew that I couldnt labor at home. I thought "so what!" I can still have the natural child birth I had planned, I will just be laboring at the hospital instead. So I insisted on no medication. I am not really certain how long I labored without medication. I kept telling myself I can do it. I have huge hips built for childbirthing, I can do this. I mean come on, I arrived at the hospital at 4 centimeters, I can make it to 10. Every time the nurses checked me, there was no progress. They explained to me that my hips were shallow and that the baby was stuck. They had me laying on my side laboring, hoping to move the baby off of my hip bone. The pain was definitely getting worse and the fact that I wasnt progressing wore me down so I agreed to an IV of pain killer, I still felt the contractions but they werent as intense. I know it wasnt as planned but at least I wasnt getting the dreaded epidural. The idea of the IV painkiller was so that I could try to get some rest through the night to prepare me for the exhaustive end of the labor. The painkiller seemed to make me groggy and sleepy but I still felt the painful contractions so I really dont feel like I got that much rest, I just felt loopy for awhile. Anyway, when the painkiller wore off, I was in unbelieveable pain so the nurses checked me again to see if I had progressed, I think it was somewhere around 6 or 7am at this point. I only remember because Daniel had left to go let the dog out and I looked at the clock wondering when in the world he was going to get back. Anyway, so when the nurse checked me, I thought for certain she was going to say that I was 10 centimeters and that the baby was no longer stuck and that it was time to push. I remember thinking that Daniel was going to miss it because he was home letting that damn dog out. Unfortunely, when the nurses checked I had not progressed at all. I remember my heart sinking. At that point I was so discouraged and in pain that I didnt care what they did. I didnt care if I was going to be paralyzed by the epidural. Heck I didnt care if they gave me a C-section. I just wanted for it to be all over. The doctor told me that since I wasnt progressing that they were going to have to give me Pitocin to really get the labor going. The pain was going to escalate, so I agreed to the epidural. Unfortunately, the epidural wasnt really working and they really couldnt tell me why. I could still feel and move my legs and with each contraction I could feel the baby pressing against my sciatic nerve causing horrible pain down both of my legs. I remember being angry that I got the epidural just to have it not work. I think I felt the majority of what natural childbirth feels like, I might not have, maybe the epidural was working a bit but if it was working even a little bit,than I would have really hated to know how it would have felt without it.
After two hours of very hard pushing and many tears from everyone, baby Maddie arrived at 1:36pm Monday afternoon with Daniel, my sister and mom by my side. When they put her on my stomach, I forgot about all the pain. Daniel was amazing during the whole thing. He kept me calm and as focused as I was going to get. I watched Daniel cut the umbilical cord and I marveled at how much dark hair our baby had. I was completely expecting a bald baby! She weighed 7.1 pounds and scored quite high on her apgar. She was perfect.
Here we are minutes after the birth, with the new addition to our little family.
Dadhood seemed to come natural to Daniel, more so than me. She was so tiny I was afraid to change her diaper for fear of hurting her. Daniel on the otherhand jumped right in, I was quite impressed. he also perfected the art of swaddling which I still havent gotten.
Tiny feet tagged like an expensive purse in Nordstroms. No one was getting our little gem.
Here she is in my arms. She was so peaceful despite all the commotion that ushered her into the world.
