Upon arrival at the hospital, the ultrasound tech was unable to find ANY amniotic fluid. My uterus was apparently drier than the Sahara. They decided that they would induce me. We called Elizabeth to let her know to feed Lynah and Shea and then to head on down to the hospital herself. It was really important to me to have Elizabeth and Eric both there. Let's face it: I am high maintenance. The more help from people who love me unconditionally the better. Elizabeth is one of the most level headed people I know and I knew she would be a great coach.
We were moved into a laboring room, which wasn't exactly the Plaza but it wasn't horrible either. There was a bed which I could raise or lower (fancy!), a chair for Eric, some machines, and...a baby warmer. When I saw that baby warmer, that's when it all really started to click into place. At some point, there was going to be a BABY in that baby warmer and it was going to have come from my belly. How exciting/terrifying/awesome was that?!?
After arriving in the room, I changed into my super special halter top delivery dress(see above. Note: this is not me). I really didn't want to give birth in a gown that someone potentially died in(even though the cycle of life is beautiful), plus the colors on the dress were two of my faves - navy and pink! After I was all changed, they hooked me up to an IV and a Pitocin drip. I had decided that I would wait to get an epidural, even though I knew I would probably need one at some point. By then, Elizabeth was there. The air was heavy with "OMG, WHAT IS HAPPENING?" It was at this point that my ob broke my water - SURPRISE! I did have amniotic fluid all along. Too late - we were already on the road to baby.
The Pitocin took a while to really heat things up. I started having some cramping after about 30 minutes, and then I had what was probably the most humiliating experience of my life. I won't into too many details, but I will say that it involved not one, but two bedpans. Specialness. Next time, I think I'll skip the wings if there's a chance I'll be going into labor.
After about an hour and half, the cramps started to become much worse and, for some reason, all of my breathing training was totally failing me. I was focusing on my breath, but the cramps were just too painful and my limited range of motion (IV/Pitocin hookups don't lend themselves to walking) meant that I couldn't do any of the other strategies I had learned in my fabulous birthing class. That's when I decided to get on the E train. The anesthesiologist came quite quickly and administered the epidural. It didn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it would and after about 20 minutes I began to feel so much better that I knew it had been the right decision for me.
The next 3 hours passed pretty uneventfully. I actually wasn't able to sleep since the epidural made me incredibly itchy all over(apparently feeling like your body is one giant mosquito bite is a normal side effect) so I sort of just lay in bed and watched Eric and Elizabeth sleep. Turns out that there's a lot less to do as a birth coach when you get an epidural. After 3 hours had passed, I started to become incredibly shaky. I called the nurse and she told me that while the epidural can take the pain of labor away, it doesn't take away the other side effects, such as shaking during transition. The good news about this was that the baby was on its way!
After about an hour of shaking and itching together(combo platter!), around 5 am, I started to feel a lot of pressure downtown if you know what I mean. I kind of ignored it at first because I was pretty sure I just had to go to the bathroom and dealing with a bedpan while on an epidural was not something that I wanted to do. So, classic Rachel, I avoided it. However, the pressure continued to increase. I told the nurse, and she said, "Pressure usually means that you are ready to push, but that would be a very fast labor." I probably would have just continued to deal with it if the pressure hadn't been so intense, but it was CRAZY uncomfortable. I asked her to just check and see how far my cervix was dilated. She checked, and lo and behold, 10 cm!
I always thought that this was the point at which the doctor would show up to guide my baby into the world. Not so. Apparently, the doctor is only with you during pushing if that works for their baby delivery schedule. My doctor came in, checked out my cervix, and said, "Great! Start pushing!" Then, left so fast I thought maybe there was some sort of fire I wasn't aware of. In my case, there was another woman down the hall whose labor wasn't going great so she was in need of an MD more than me. As it turned out, I had a pretty fantastic(well, mostly) nurse who was assigned to just me. She got me all situated in the stirrups, Eric sat by my head, Elizabeth held one knee, and the nurse held the other. Then, we got down to business.
Pushing out a baby is pretty much the hardest workout ever because you feel like you are making zero progress the entire time. Unlike a weight machine where you can see that all of your grunting is actually doing something or a run where you can tell that you are moving, there is no visual on the mom's end during pushing. So the nurse was all like, "We're really getting there!" and I was all like, "This push feels exactly the same as the last 97!" So, essentially, the next 30 minutes consisted of lots of pushing and me being like "IS THE BABY OUT YET?!?" My pushing experience was made even more special by the fact that my nurse was the slowest counter in the world. When I count to ten, it's on a steady beat, with about a second pause between each number. This was how my nurse would start out, but then by 7, she would really stretch it out so it was more like "one, two, three, four, five, six, seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnn, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhtttttttttttt, niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnneeeeee, teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen" This meant that instead of pushing for 10 seconds at a time, I was actually pushing for like 27. I tried asking her to count on a steady pace, but to no avail. The best part was that she kept talking about what an awesome job I was doing and how I was doing much better than the woman down the hall. Great for my competitive spirit, not so great for my entire lower body.
Elizabeth and Eric were right with me the whole time, encouraging me along. Elizabeth continually talked about how awesome this all was and Eric repeated the three phrases I had okayed in our birth plan, "I love you," "You're amazing," and "I could never do this."
FINALLY, the nurse said that she could see the head. It was at this point that she went to go and get my doctor. The doctor arrived and I really got into getting that baby out of me. Whereas the whole time, I couldn't feel anything different, now that the baby was really coming into the world, I could totally feel EVERYTHING. At one point, the doctor asked me to look down to see the baby but I could tell he wasn't all the way out and I didn't want to lose my focus on pushing so I was like, "LET'S KEEP GOING". On his way out, he did manage to execute a nice tear in my vaginal wall which meant A LOT of blood. Apparently, Elizabeth almost fainted twice.
As soon as soon to be named Leo came out, the nurse put him on my chest. I gave him a once over to make sure that everything was in order - one head, two arms, two legs, approximately the right amount of fingers and toes. He had arrived!
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| I've never looked lovelier. Or more relieved that my baby wasn't a cyclops. |
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| Check out that lanugo! |
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