Okay, where did I leave off? Oh, right... "Give me the drugs!" (see previous post to get caught up!)
Thursday, March 24th, around 11:30pm: we are in the triage room getting all checked out. First thing they do is a little test to make sure my water actually broke. I guess lots of women go into the hospital thinking that their water broke when it actually hasn't. So, they do this little swabby test and tell me that according to the test, my water did NOT break. Say what?! Um, yes it did... and I am definitely in labor. Luckily they believe me and draw the conclusion that it partially broke, or something, but there is still lots of water in there (gross). They ask me lots of questions about my birth plan (do I want an epidural), and other random things that I don't remember anymore. I do my best to answer them in between contractions but, answering their questions is the last thing I want to be doing right now. Chris is right next to me letting me squeeze his hand (until each finger is successfully broken) through each contraction. He's reminding me to breathe and counting for me... what a wonderful coach he is! At one point I go into panic mode and stop breathing through the contractions - I look at Chris and say, "I can't do this, I can't do this" several times in a row. He gently (but firmly) reminds me that I CAN do it... if I keep breathing. Breathing is key. You cannot birth a baby without oxygen.
Friday, March 25th, 12am: I finally get to move into a labor and delivery room of my very own! And, do you know what this means? Epidural time. At this point my contractions are about every 2-3 minutes but I'm still only dilated to 3 or 4 cm. I'm all snug in my bed and just waiting for the epidural angel to arrive. I'm getting worried that I'm going to dilate quickly and not be able to get my epidural. The prospect of natural child birth is not one that I want to entertain, but I'm feeling pretty glad that I paid attention in that child birth class... (not to scare anyone who is about to give birth but,) this pain is unlike anything I have ever experienced. MAD PROPS to you who have given birth without pain relief... I truly do not understand how you did it!
1:00am: He's here, he's here! The epidural angel has arrived. It's love at first sight. Chris is pretty thankful for him as well... he probably could have used a little shot of epidural in his poor hand that I have been squeezing for the last hour and a half. (On a side note, all the nurses kept commenting on what a great coach Chris was... he realllllllly was!) My angel is a charming man... he tells me to sit up and hold onto a pillow... oh and don't move... or breathe... or else. At this point, I am nervous about the pain of the epidural needle. Isn't that hilarious? In hindsight, I can laugh at this... but I can't make sense of it. I would gladly take 5 shots 1 shot per minute for an hour and a half over labor pains. Anyways, just as he's doing his thang and reminding me not to move one centimeter, I have a contraction and the stupid blood pressure cuff goes off (question for other previously pregnant women... am I the only one who feels this animosity toward the blood pressure cuff? I hate that thing). Seriously?! But, much to my surprise, I managed to keep it together and before I know it I'm all hooked up to that happy little IV bag. I ask how long until it kicks in, just a few minutes! YAY! He hands me this wonderful little button that's connected to a cord that goes to my IV... what is this magical button? It's an epidural button. I love this button. If I feel any pain I can just push the button. Magic. Within a few minutes I'm laboring away with no pain. Child birth isn't so bad after all.
So, I'm laboring my little heart out, watching the contractions jump up on the monitor and feeling so thankful for modern medicine. My labor and delivery nurse (Sylvia, I LOVE her) is scuttling around, doing things with tubes and cords and calling the doctor and having confusing conversations that make me worry something might be wrong... it's hard to tell when you can only hear one side of the conversation though. I ask if everything is OK and she tells me that the baby's heart rate is a smidgen low, nothing to be concerned about at this point but they are going to keep an eye on it. I tell her that I popped a benadryl before my water broke (remember all that itching? this was the one thing I was allowed to take for it). She says this is good to know and it's probably why the heart rate is slow... I made the baby sleepy. I have to keep an oxygen mask on for pretty much the rest of the night to keep the baby awake, or something.
2:00am: We are finally "settled" in labor and delivery... nurse Sylvia is done with her scuttling, I can't feel anything from the waist down, Chris is resting on his little pull out bed... it's time to wait. Did I mention yet that my mom, sister in law (Kristen) and my dad were all in the waiting room this whole time? We didn't want to let them in until the scuttling was over... and, being that I am in labor at this point, I am totally unaware of how amazing it is that they have been sitting out there for 2 hours, in the middle of the night. Nurse Sylvia says we can only have two other people in the room (besides Chris) - and we can't swap out... boo (Okay, I knew I could only have 3 in there beforehand but I didn't know about the no swapping rule). This means that someone is either going home or sitting in the waiting room for who knows how long waiting for little May to make her appearance. I already knew that I wanted my mom there with me and there was no way Kristen was going anywhere until she had hugged the baby, (not to mention it would be so traumatizing and unnecessary for my dad to see me give birth) so my poor pops had to head home. My handsome husband snuck him in for a quick visit first though :-).
4:00am: Nurse Sylvia comes in and says she'd like to check out the progress. Excellent. I am anticipating not much progress since it's only been 3 hours since the last check... and rumor has it, the epidural slows things down. Nurse Sylvia pops up with a grin on her face and says "how far do you think you are?" - hmmm, well, I thought 4cm until you asked me that... now I'm just not sure. 9 1/2 CM! WOAH! My body is so MADE for this stuff :-). I just KNEW that those contractions meant business... I knew it. So, what now? We're all abuzz! Nurse Sylvia says she can't make a guess on "how much longer" but she will call my doctor (it is the middle of the night still so none of my doctors are there, even though their office is inside the hospital.)
After chatting with the doctor, Nurse Sylvia asks if I'm comfortable still, yep... can't feel a thing, feeling good. Okay then, they are going to let me "labor down" for a while. (Luckily my good friend Katie did this and told me about it before hand, so I knew what she was talking about.) Basically this means they are going to let me continue to labor and contract so the baby can move farther down on her own, rather than pushing for hours.
5:00am: Uh oh. Something isn't right... I'm feeling pain and lots of it (regardless of how many times i pushed my magic button). There is shooting and continuous pain in my lower back... We switch sides (which takes an army, by the way)... we switch again... Chris is all hunched over and rubbing my back (even though I'm laying on my back... he's amazing), Kristen is massaging my hands, mom is doing her thing... showing just the perfect amount of pity... no relief. Oh man, this sucks. Nurse Sylvia says I shouldn't be able to feel anything so she's calling in Dr. Angel again. I'm thinking that he'll come in and tell me that he did his part already and "sometimes there is break through pain." My hopes are not high. Dr. Angel comes in.. turns me on my side and shoots some epidural right into my back... instant relief (I'd like to note that I didn't even know he was doing this... I thought he was putting something else in the IV bag and just re-arranging the way I was laying to help with the pain - my mom told me later in the week that there was actually a very large needle involved in this process). I love this man.
6:00am: Well, I'm getting to the freezing cold and shaky part of labor now... does everyone experience this? Well, I did. I am up to 5 heated blankets... it's helping a bit. Chris is snoozing while he can, mom and Kristen are chatting and mom keeps whispering "she's asleep" to Kristen every time I close my eyes. :-) Nurse Sylvia keeps coming in and asking if I feel the need to push. Um, nope... can't feel anything down there... She has been telling me for about an hour that "the dr. is on her way in." - how far does the doctor live from here anyways? Oh, and Nurse Sylvia's shift is over... she hands me off to a new nurse whose name I can't remember... we'll call her Nurse #2 (yes, Nikki, totally stealing from you right now). She seems nice, but she's no Sylvia.
6:30am: "Do you feel the need to push?" Nope... what does that feel like again? Yeah, no... I don't feel that. She's on the phone with the doctor and I get this feeling that the on call doctor's "on call shift" ends at 7am and she's desperately hoping that I can hold on until a different OB gets in at 7... Well, whatever... I feel fine and the baby is fine so I don't really care but that just seems rude.
7:00am: Dr. Nakanishi arrives! (this is not the on-call doc... this is the one who is actually working the morning shift... as it turns out, I love her way more than the on-call doc so I'm pretty happy we waited.) She comes right in and gets all her gear on (including a splat mask covering her face... gross). I get the feeling that it is time to push... and if I could feel anything right now, it would be an urge to push. Dr. is not joking around here... there are nurses everywhere, preparing things for the baby (who will be OUTSIDE of my body soon, really?!)... this is getting exciting! Dr. Nakanishi asks me if I would like to hold the baby as soon as she pops out... I answer, "when she's all covered in goo? umm, no." (please don't judge me. I wasn't in my right mind and if I could do it again, I would change my answer to this question.)
Chris is in place to hold one of my giant heavy legs out of harms way... and guess who is holding my other giant heavy leg?! Nurse Sylvia! Yes, she finished her shift but came back for my delivery. She's amazing. Nurse #2 is like a really tough cheerleader and I'm so glad she's here. Well, it's time to push! Here's the skinny on pushing (in case you aren't familiar). You only push when there is a contraction... my doc/nurse team had me push 3 times for 10 seconds each during each contraction. This doesn't sound like much but it is exhausting. Only a big exhale during the push and one big inhale in between pushes, or I'd lose all my momentum. I failed the first round but got the hang of it after that. During each push all the nurses, the doctor and Chris are literally yelling the count... ONE! TWO! THREE! This sounds obnoxious but it's actually wonderful and greatly encouraging (especially when you can't feel where you are pushing). So, we did this for about 45 minutes or so (with HUGE breaks in between because for some reason my contractions slowed waaay down... so we were waiting 5-7 minutes between them.) In the end I think I had 3 or 4 big pushes and out she came! While she was crowning, Chris says "her head is small!" and I think, hmmm, that doesn't sound right, she feels huge (I mean, in my belly, I can't feel anything in regards to giving birth). Then he quickly corrects this statement as he see's her giant face emerge - the "small head" was just a funny misshapen softball sized lump on her head. Charming.
8:21am: Next thing I know, she's here!! I truly couldn't believe it. The first thing I asked was, "is it a girl?" - Chris and I had a running "joke" that she was going to be a boy and he would spend the first year of his life in pink. The second thing I asked was, "is that her?" - I was quite certain that I was never ever going to give birth so this was probably someone else's baby.
They had Chris cut the cord (gross) and then whisked May to the other side of the room where they did all the little things they do to newborn babies. My favorite part was when they put her on the scale... the nurse said, "9lbs, 6oz!" and everyone in the room yelled "WOAH!" - I told you she was big. She had a good hearty scream going on - mom and Kristen were outside the room listening to the madness (Chris and I decided we wanted it to just be us in there when May was born). My good friend Kelly was on the phone with Kristen and actually heard May's first cries through the phone, through the door. This kid has some lungs. May proceeded to scream and scream for the next 20 minutes or so. Guess when she stopped crying... just guess. Yep, when they put her sweet, clean little body in my arms. It was the most magical moment of my life.
Once Chris and I had a chance to snuggle our sweet little angel, we let my mom and Kristen come back in - poor things had been in the hallway for ages at this point. The rest of the day was filled with visitors, learning to nurse, failed attempts at napping, extended stays in the nursery for May (she had a glucose situation but was fine) and lots of staring at that sweet baby.
I have tons of fun postpartum stories but will not blog about those... it think this is enough for now. :-) Enjoy the pictures of our fist moments with our Maybug.
The official stats:
May Florence Winn
Born on March 25, 2011 at 8:21am
9lbs, 6oz
21 in
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| First family photo! A self-portrait, of course. It's a Winn Family tradition. |
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| My sweet angel... how can a "big" baby still be so tiny?! |
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| May's first trip to the nursery... guess she was pretty content in there :-) |
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| My boo... was she really ever this small? |
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| Heading home! |
