The Rest of The Story

Because I want to remember every detail of Bennett's birth long after other memories take the place of what is currently front and center in my brain, this post is dedicated to the details of April 20, 2013. Read at your own risk!

But first, let's go back a little bit....

My due date was April 14th. This is what's on the paperwork, but I do remember my very first ultrasound predicting my due date as the 18th. Thus, I always knew there was a small margin of flexibility in the actual date. Further, both Bailey and Nolan were late, so that variable added more uncertainty about when to expect our baby. On top of all that, my doctor indicated the growth of my uterus early on as ahead of where it "should be" but then closer to my due date I was measuring smaller than average. Again, all this made me relatively unsure of whether the baby would come early, on time, or late. He chose late. :-)

As if we could control this situation, we had all these wishes about when would be the ideal time for the baby to be born. Some of these were based on Jason's school schedule and planned exams, another was based on Bailey's state testing at school. She had a lot of anxiety about missing school during testing, but certainly didn't want to miss her brother's birth. I felt really great throughout my pregnancy, so I was happy to let the baby stay put as long as was necessary in order to get through some of these difficult and anxious moments for others in my family. Again, I say this like I could have controlled it! But, in a way I felt like I could will him to stay put far more than I could will him to come out!!

Like I said, I felt great. That is, I felt great until the last few days. Physically, nothing dramatic changed, but I found myself going downhill emotionally. After my due date came and went on Sunday, the following days showing up at work to everyone's well-intentioned, "You're STILL here?!" comments started to weigh on me. I realized it was not a big deal and the baby wouldn't stay inside me forever, but by Thursday I felt a significant shift. I was depressed and overly emotional. I had planned to work up until the delivery, but in the middle of the night Thursday night I decided that I deserved to stay home Friday. In fact, I then decided that Friday would be a day of fun/house projects that would have nothing to do with the baby. And, frankly, it was just what the doctor ordered. I did laundry, shampooed my carpets, gave the dog a bath and a haircut, took Nolan to lunch and out shopping for a bit, and then played outside with both kids when Bailey got out of school.

As someone wise once said, "a watched pot never boils." As soon as I stopped obsessing over when the baby would arrive, guess what? The baby arrived. On Friday night, Jason and I stayed up kind of late watching t.v., and went to bed right before midnight. I had been sleeping on the couch for the better part of the last month as my once-glorious bed had become quite uncomfortable. At 1:00 a.m. I awoke from a dream in which I was having a very painful contraction. In my dream, I told myself that I better wake up because this wasn't really a dream. Ha! Yep, I was having a contraction.

Per my plan that anticipated labor being similar to labor with Nolan, where I timed contractions at home until they were 8 minutes apart and then went to the hospital about 5 hours into the process, I immediately got my phone and prepared to chart my contractions on a cool app I downloaded. I sat on the couch, poised and ready to wait 15? 20? minutes for the next one. And then I had another one less than 3 minutes later. This surprised me, but I thought it was probably just an irregularity and until the contractions became regular, it was likely just false labor. Then I had another one 2 1/2 minutes later.....and they continued coming less than 3 minutes apart. I also had an incredible feeling of pressure, which panicked me a bit. I also passed some blood, which had never happened to me before. I didn't THINK I would be having a home birth, but how did I know? Needless to say, I woke Jason and told him I was scared and didn't know how to handle this new situation. We debated for a minute about what to do, particularly in regard to the kids. Eventually, we decided we would just go and if necessary Jeanne and Phil could take them back home. We each called our parents and alerted them that it was "go time."

Upon arriving at the hospital, the nurse took us to what I affectionately refer to as the "holding tank" for monitoring. They checked me and said I was dilated to a 4. I expected that to be sufficient proof that I was, indeed, going to have a baby, but they said they were going to monitor me for an hour to see if I progressed. Progressed to what?? Were they going to send me home having contractions every 2 minutes and dilated to a 4? I'm pretty sure I got an epidural with Nolan when I was at a 5, so this perplexed me. In any case, our parents arrived and I suffered through pounding contractions for an hour. At that point, I was at a 5 and they called the on-call doctor to determine whether they should admit me. Again, really?

When they finally took me to a permanent room, I was really struggling. Everyone there said they had no idea that I was in as much pain as I was and I guess that's a good thing. I had a nurse who kept telling me how great I was doing, and I somehow kept myself from telling her to shut up. :-) I asked for a barf bag as I thought for a bit that I was going to throw up. The nurses assured me that they would immediately call for the anesthesiologist and it wouldn't be long before I could have an epidural. I'm sure it wasn't that long, but it seemed to take forever. I remembered contractions being painful, and increasingly so, but I'm pretty sure I hadn't previously experienced the downward pressure that I was experiencing. With each contraction, I felt that my bottom half would simply explode. I was starting to feel out of control when the anesthesiologist arrived to give me hope. :-) Then the epidural took almost 45 minutes, as the doctor had trouble threading the catheter into my back due to some scar tissue from my previous epidurals. Ugh. I've always feared the epidural (but feared the alternative even MORE) but I told my mother that I didn't care if he cut a hole in my back in order to squirt the medicine in if he would just get it done!

And then it WAS done and I started to feel some relief. Unlike my other two, I still had a lot of sensation (including the pressure feeling with each contraction) but not much actual pain. I wasn't complaining. This is when I began to enjoy the experience with the kids, my parents, Jason's parents, etc. They checked me and I was at a 7. Jason and others went to get breakfast (think it was around 6:30?) and I just relaxed. When they returned, I got a popsicle, which I gladly ate because I had still been feeling like I might get sick, I'm sure from the medicine.

Then we started wondering if they were ever going to come check me again. The nurses were preoccupied with trying to get hold of my doctor and determine whether she would be here for the delivery or if they needed to contact the on-call doctor. I didn't really care. My doctor has yet to deliver one of my children, so this was not a shock to me when they came back and said it would likely be the on-call doctor. At some point, I told the nurse that I thought my water had broken. She looked and said she didn't think so but would check me in a bit. A long bit. Finally, another nurse came in and asked if my water had broken. I told her I thought so earlier, but the nurse didn't think so, but that I continued to feel fluid. She then checked me and said, "Oh, yeah it's gone and you're completely dilated." I wonder how long that had been the case.

Then, things started moving in fast-motion. The nurses came in and started bringing supplies and getting my bed ready. A moment of comic relief came when the nurses started bickering over how to operate this new bed that they had just received. Each had a different opinion about how to adjust the leg stirrups. I sat there patiently, but feeling more anxious by the second. Where was the doctor?

Somewhere in there, we decided to let Bailey watch the delivery from up behind my head. Jeanne and my mom also stayed, and I think they both really enjoyed that experience. As we were waiting, one nurse suggested I push one time to get the baby ready for when the doctor got there. I remember thinking I didn't think that was a good idea, but I complied because I'm a rules follower. When I did, she immediately told me to stop. The doctor came in and quickly assessed the situation. She then told the nurses she didn't like how I was positioned, so there was more discussion about the newfangled bed. Jason quietly said, "The baby is coming." He saw the head, and yet the doc was still repositioning me. Then Jason got a little louder, "The baby is really coming!" I wasn't pushing or anything, but was instead watching the doctor struggle to get her gloves on in time to catch the baby. It was pretty funny, if it hadn't been a little scary to think that things were happening so quickly!

And then he was born. Jason didn't get to cut the cord this time, as the cord was wrapped around Bennett's neck, which required a little more doctor's care/intervention than usual. That was a momentary concern, which was resolved without problem and then Bennett was whisked over to the evaluation area and his nurses worked him over and then weighed and measured him. I got a big kick out of watching the kids say their first hellos to their baby brother. I also got a kick out of the fact that Bennett weighed 7.11. Bailey was 7.13, Nolan was 7.12, and now I had one that was another stair step down from there. So funny!

So there you have it....the rest of the story. The simple version is this: hard labor, super easy delivery. I honestly don't know how people do it without an epidural. Of course, just like with other things, I think expectations are key. Had I planned on not getting one, perhaps I would have been more mentally prepared to endure the labor. And, now that it's all behind me, it wasn't that bad and completely worth it. I'm glad I had three very different experiences to remember and reflect upon. I loved them all just like I love each of those crazy kiddos!

K