Here is the ENTIRE labor and delivery story. Warning - probably WAAAY too much information, more than you'd like to know, and may be super boring!
More pictures on another post - the fun post! :)
I woke up around 2:15 with bad cramping - thought my bladder was just really full so I went to the bathroom. While in the bathroom it eased up, so I thought I was okay. Then it started again and I realized I was having a contraction while it hurt. Which was different - since all of my other "contractions" didn't hurt at all before. I also had "bloody show." So I thought maybe this was it, but wasn't sure. I went and laid down in bed and checked the clock just in case. About 15 minutes later another one started. I tried waking Jesse while I was going through it - but he rolled over and said something aloud from his dream (it was pretty funny). I decided that I'd wait for one more before waking him up, I was worried about waking him up and getting him all nervous and excited for nothing. So after about 15 more minutes it happened again, this time a little stronger. I woke him up a little more forcefully this time, definitely NOT whispering his name! He woke up and I told him I was having painful contractions, not the regular ones I had been having a lot lately. He woke up pretty quickly this time :)
He got out the stop watch on his phone and we started timing the frequency of them (the start of one to the start of the next -- not the time in between). They were still about 15 minutes for the next 45 minutes (Jesse had to shave, just in case this was it. He didn't want to look like a bum. hahah. When I came to a contraction he would come over all foamed up and help me through it, then go back to shaving. ha). Then the frequency of he contractions went down to about 9-10 for a few times, then to 6-7 minutes, and by 5:00 they were very regularly coming at about 5 minutes for the past half hour. We decided to start getting out of the house and on our way to the hospital since things seemed to be picking up. We tried to follow the 4-1-1 rule. 4 minute frequency, 1 minute long contractions, for about 1 hour. We figured 5 minutes was close enough, and my contractions (from the very beginning!) were already about 2 minutes or more long. So these two minute contractions would only leave me about two minutes in between and another would come! We tried different positions to relieve the pain - it was best to kneel by the bed and put my head on the bed, grabbing anything and squeezing ... while Jesse squeezed my shoulders and reminded me how to breathe. Anyway, before we left, Jesse wanted to take a quick shower and I got ready to leave - using my two-three minutes in-between contractions wisely. :) We were out of the house by 5:30am.
While driving to the hospital, we continued to time the contractions - they were about 4 minutes now, so at least I knew things were continuing to progress. I was really hoping this was it and we weren't going to the hospital for no reason. Of course I have no idea how this is supposed to be, reading about it and going through it is two completely different things. So I was hoping we were right and this was it! Jesse got us to the hospital in about 15 minutes! It was great! We arrived about 5:45am.
Jesse dropped me off at the front and walked me into the lobby to sit down. Then he went back to park the car and grab the bags. I was nervous about having a contraction in the lobby, there were people there and I didn't want to look funny. ha. I had one, tried to cover my face and just breathe - not sure if anyone noticed? Oh well! Jesse and I went up to the third floor and over to labor and delivery. They immediately put me into a room (thank goodness for PREregistering a few weeks ago). Before the nurse (who I didn't really care for) checked my dilation she asked me ho wmuch pain I was in on a scale from 1-10 (of course WHILE I was going through a contraction!) I told her a 10, but I'm sure this isn't really a 10. She said "Yeah, you don't even know what a ten is yet!" Then she checked my dilation - said I was very thinned out and at about a 2 or 3. She said she would be leaving and a new shift would come in at about 7, in an hour. She would come in right before that and check me again - if something had changed (more dilated or more thinned out) then I would be admitted. She strapped me to all of the monitors and told me I had to stay in bed - which I was VERY bummed about since sitting down like that (kind of reclined) made my contractions SO much more unbearable. We stopped timing them, but I was having maybe one minute in between. They were quick!
Roxanne and my dad showed up sometime around this time. My sister got a speeding ticket on her way! What a dork!!
At 7:15 I was getting a little impatient - where was the nurse? I knew I had progressed and I needed them to verify it before I could request pain relief - my epidural!! I called a nurse in, they said they were still updating the new staff and would be in. How annoying, that stupid first nurse who I didn't like anyway, did not do what she said. I was supposed to be checked right before the new round came in! ugh! So I waited, at 7:30 I called them in again. SOMEONE CHECK ME. I didn't want to progress too much and miss my window for my epidural. I was in sooo much pain by then. There was no break in between my contractions (later when I was numb from my epidural, Jesse showed me the graph were my contractions were not stopping. They would, at times, flat line at "12" at the top because they were off the chart! Then my "relief" was them going down to a "6" for about 1 minute. I WAS AT A SIX WHEN I ARRIVED with my "10-scale" pain contractions at the beginning! Omg! No wonder I was soo miserable)! They said to wait a little while longer they would be in soon. AhhHhh! I also complained about the A/C. I was sweating to death. It was disgusting in there. The others were hot too, and the air was all of the way down! Gross!!
The entire time through these contractions Jesse was just amazing though. He reminded me how to breathe (very deep and slowly), said how proud he was and that I was doing great, and didn't take it personally when I was a little (okay, maybe a lot) short with him. Like when I yelled his breathe smelled like coffee (he had eaten a granola bar - not sure why this smelled like coffee to me) then he put in gum and I yelled it was too minty ... so he just tried to keep his face away from mine. Hard to do when my head is in his chest, but oh well. Soon the pain got so bad I didn't notice smells. He also didn't complain I was going to rip off his hand, tear his shirt off, or break his thumb. So that's good! While doing all of that to him, chewing on the blanket and grinding my teeth into it during contractions really helped too. Weird.
Finally the new nurse (who I liked MUCH MUCH better, thank goodness!!) came in at about 7:45. She checked me and I was at a 4. I was being admitted! This was it! NOW GET ME MY EPIDURAL! :) Oh no, not so fast! I had paperwork to fill out and questions to answer. SERIOUSLY? I was dying at this point with no relief in between. My sister, Roxanne, was reading off the paperwork to Jesse and I to answer. During the really painful "peak" of the contractions I was annoyed by it waved my hand in her face to get her to stop. She stopped. haha. I kept telling her to "shhhhh" as I breathed out. She finally said "AMY - it's to get you the pain meds faster. Let me finish!" That put some sense in my head and I tried to tune her out. For some reason the noise made my skin crawl and my head hurt, but I managed. We got the paperwork filled out, handed it in, again requested pain relief, and finally was moved to another room that had A/C at about 8 - woo!
When I got to the room I asked about the epidural again. She said "the doctor's not here, he'll be here in an hour." I let out a pretty big moan and told Jesse I would never make it! About 20 minutes later I said "Jesus, only 20 minutes? I still have 40 to go!" Jesse and Roxanne both looked at each other ... they told me the best news ever ... the nurse said HALF an hour, not an hour. WoOo! I could do 10 more minutes. Of course he didn't show up until 8:45, but he was there! Before he got there though, the nurse came in and said that the baby was telling her she was ready - since her heartbeat was dropping a little during my contractions (that I couldn't feel!!!) telling the nurse her head was really low and ready to go. She called my OB/GYN doctor and came back to tell me we would wait for the baby to descend a little more and then start pushing. We waited about 45 minutes (about 9:45), she came back in, checked my dilation (7cm) and broke my water. Funny story with that - she was up there breaking it and I said "Ooh that feels so good" then quickly realized how stupid and disgusting that sounded and added "because of the pressure, because the pressure is released." Idiot! Oh well.
After this, the epidural came! The epidural was SUPER PAINLESS. Before going into labor I was terrified by it - getting it, feeling the weird numbness, and recovering from it - but now that I was in this much pain, all I could think about was "hurry it up already!" He didn't have the right size gloves, so that took most of the time. UGH! He numbed me with the local anesthetic, which burned slightly, then went to work at the rest. I didn't feel a thing. I even asked Jesse, "is he doing it yet?" because I was so anxious to get it done. the hardest part was laying in the position they wanted me to - especially while I was going through contraction after contraction. They had me laying on my side (which was painful to get into) curled up with the nurse pushing my knees into my chest (picture how you do that with a huge, very low lying, belly!) and my hand on my knee pulling it even more into my tummy. I only had one hand free to squeeze Jesse with and it was difficult to breathe during the contractions. Yuck. The doctor said it would take about 15 minutes to take effect. He said I needed to turn over on my back, I kept trying but it was so hard I thought it was impossible with all of the pain. Finally he nicely said - if you don't, only your left side (since I was laying on that side) would be numb. I moved pretty fast after that. I had heard stories and didn't want that!!
It took about 25 minutes to really relieve all of the pain. I was in a much better mood immediately. I laid there and joked around, talked, and felt very little of the pain. I'm so glad I got the epidural. I labored for 7 hours without it, but the next 3 with it were amazing. I felt more in the moment - when I was in all of that pain I was out of it and angry and miserable and I couldn't concentrate on anything but trying to breathe through the pain!
My mom and younger sister Nikki got there right after the epidural (they missed the fun part. ha). The nurse came in and said we could start pushing her down while we waited for my OB/GYN to come. The nurse said she wanted to see how I could push being all numb, if I did a good job we wouldn't have to take away the epidural - so I would feel enough pain to know how to push. Man did I freakin push, hoping she would not have to take anything away! Luckily, she said I was doing a great job. She left and came back about 45 minutes later to continue pushing her down the birth canal to get ready for the doctor to deliver her. The pushing was painless, except my head felt like it was going to explode - since that's the only thing I felt. My mom and Jesse helped by holding my feet back while I pushed. In between contractions/pushing we talked - it was nice and calm. Thank goodness! I pushed her down enough and the nurse said "wow she has a lot of hair!!" I wanted to see! I was pretty adamant that I didn't want ANYONE, including me, to be watching down there while the baby was delivered. Who wants to watch your own surgery type thing? Gross! But when she said that. Oh man I wanted to see! She put the mirror there so I could watch - and I loved it. Her tiny tiny tiny little head did show a TON of hair! How cool!
My doctor got there right before 12 and I had one good contraction - three pushes - and her head was delivered. They sucked her nose/mouth out (she wasn't making any noise at first and I was so worried I tried looking but couldn't see - they had taken away the mirror at that point). But they said they had to clean her out before she took her first breath. Then she started crying (oh the sweetest sound) and I delivered the rest of her body. Immediately I started crying and could barely see through the tears. I felt so overwhelmed and so much love already. It was amazing. Because she had pooped inside, Jesse wasn't able to cut the cord and I wasn't able to hold her right away. They cleaned her off, sucked everything out of her throat and nostrils and put her under the warmer for a few minutes. I was getting all taken care of and just watched the baby through the busyness of all of the nurses. She was just the cutest thing from the first second. She was wide awake and screaming her head off. She made the cutest "kitten" noises - not regular screaming. She scored a 9 on her apgar (out of ten) and was very healthy! They wrapped her up and gave her to me. I was overjoyed. Wow. amazed. I just cried and cried. I couldn't get over her. Surreal! Too, too unreal. Jesse got to hold her and I couldn't get over that either. Just the sweetest picture ever. I want to keep it in my head forever. I love them both so much.
After a few people got to hold her (my big brother showed up - how cute was he holding this tiny baby?!), I nursed her. She was a pro! The lactation consultant came in right at that time and showed me how to hold her and stuff (I didn't know what I was doing, but Allison sure did). She nursed for a little, then they took her off to the nursery. They told "daddy" that he could come watch. Wow was he out of there fast - he grabbed the camera and left. No bye. hahaha. Too cute! Everyone else left too and tried to go see (but I guess they had her in a different spot and they couldn't see, only daddy was allowed in). I laid in bed, trying to soak it all in. Wow. Just Wow.
They moved me to the recovery room and Jesse showed back up. The baby was going to need to be under the lights to warm up for a while, then they would give her a bath. I requested that she be returned to us when she was done, so I could feed her again. We couldn't wait to have her back! At this point everyone else returned and said good bye. Just me and Jesse. Soaking it all in. Amazing.
AFTER the epidural. Definitely was NOT smiling before!
SEVEN pounds. ONE ounce.
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