Giving Birth to Greg

I originally wrote this blog about 6 weeks after Greg was born and posted in on MySpace. I'm going to delete my MySpace account since I never use it so I thought I'd transfer those blog posts over here...

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Childbirth Current mood: recovering

On Sunday Feb 17, 2008 I woke up feeling pretty normal - just the usual discomforts of the ninth month of pregnancy. I got up, made blueberry muffins for breakfast and noticed some clear liquid when I went to the bathroom. I mentioned it to Andrew but wasn’t too worried since my due date wasn’t until March 4th. At my last Dr appointment a few days before (on Wed afternoon) I was only 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced so I really didn’t think this would be my water breaking. But on the urging of my nervous husband, I called the Dr and explained that I had some weird feelings that may or may not be contractions, mentioned the clear fluid and told them I wasn’t in any pain or really even much discomfort. They advised me to go to the ER to make sure it wasn’t my water leaking so I had Andrew finish packing the suitcase, I showered, shaved my legs and we calmly went to the ER about noon.
Upon arriving, we went in the triage room where they determined it wasn’t my water breaking or leaking, but found that I was 3 cm dilated and 100% effaced. All this time, I was sure I wasn’t in labor and that they’d send us home but much to my surprise, they admitted me right then and there. We were taken into a huge labor and delivery room that was so nice it felt like we were in a hotel. Andrew started making phone calls to family to let them know we’d been admitted as I was getting hooked up to IV’s and getting hooked up to all the baby monitors etc. After the contractions started getting more intense, I made Andrew switch to texting because I was in pain and wanted the room totally quiet so I could concentrate on getting through the contractions one at a time. At 5 cm, I felt like I needed to use the bathroom but when I tried to get up, the pain of the contractions was worse than feeling like I needed to pee so I laid back down with help from the nurse and asked when a good time would be to get the epidural. The anesthesiologist came in, consulted with the Dr and they said I was ok to get the epidural then if I wanted it. I contemplated waiting a bit longer, but Andrew convinced me that I didn’t need to suffer through any more contractions if I was going to get the epidural anyway so I told them I was ready.
I was pretty nervous about getting the epidural but it wasn’t too terrible. The only surprising and a little bit scary thing was when he was putting the catheter in, I had an involuntary nerve impluse that made my left leg kick straight out and my left arm jerk. I was trying so hard to hold still, I started apologizing and the anesthesiologist said not to worry and these "hot spots" sometimes happen and that it was no big deal. He then explained that the medicine was on a pump, and I could push a button every time I felt like I needed pain medication and that the pump was on a 20 minute lock. That sounded great to me. After the epidural was in, I felt 100% better and called mom and dad and was in much better spirits. Unfortunately, about an hour and a half later, the pain started returning and I was getting pretty uncomfortable again. I began pushing that little button every 20 minutes, wanting more pain medication but it just didn’t seem to help. The anesthesiologist kept coming in every 2 hours and giving me manual injections into the epidural which would relieve the pain for another hour and a half but by 2 hours, I was shaking uncontrollably again from the pain. At 8 cm things got pretty rough. I got sick and threw up all over myself which was lovely, and then an alarm went off, signalling that the epidural was out of medicine. So the nurse called the anesthesiologist and he came in to check. It was at this time that everything began to make sense. The anesthesiologist discovered that the bag of medicine wasn’t empty, but on the contrary, it was totally full! The epidural pump had malfunctioned and every time I hit that button was in vain because no medicine was being applied to my epidural! No wonder I was in so much pain! At that point, they fixed the epidural pump but it was too late. I was in so much pain during the final stages of labor that nothing seemed to help. My labor had progressed pretty normally up until I reached 9 cm, but then things kind of stalled. After being stuck at 9 cm for a few hours, at 11:00 pm the Dr checked me and said if I wasn’t at 10 cm in 1 hour, then we might need to consider a c-section. I had been warned a few days before that my pelvis was really narrow and that I might not be able to deliver vaginally anyway, especially since everyone was expecting my baby to be really big. So I signed all the extra paper work and was informed of everything that a c-section would entail, just in case things came to that over the next hour. Then, after an hour had passed and I had resigned myself to thinking I would be having a c-section, the Dr came in, checked me and said I was fully dilated to 10 cm and said it was time to push! I was totally unprepared for that news and was a little scared now that it was actually time to give birth. The nurse grabbed one leg and Andrew grabbed the other and at midnight, I started pushing.
Pushing was by far the worst part of the whole ordeal. The pain I experienced is impossible to describe and cannot be likened to anything else on earth. It was horrible. This agonizing pushing went on for 2 hours before the Dr finally decided that the baby was stuck behind my pubic bone and I would not be able to deliver him vaginally. So the decision was made to deliver the baby via c-section. I was able to stop pushing then, but that didn’t help the pain at all. I just wanted to get to the c-section and get it over with. But apparently, there were a lot of other girls going through the same thing that night because there was no operating room available for me! So I had to wait what was probably only a few minutes but what felt like an eternity until I was finally taken to the OR. Finally, at 2:32 am on Monday February 18th, 2008 Gregory James was delivered via c-section. By the time he was delivered, I was so exhausted and spent from the agonizing labor, that I couldn’t stop shaking enough to even hold my baby without help. The nurses took the baby and cleaned him up, Andrew cut the umbilical cord, and then he peed all over the place! That’s what baby boys do best! I held my son for a few brief minutes, feeling numb and on the verge of delirium and then Andrew went with them as they took him to the nursery while they finished my surgery and put me back together.
We spent the rest of the week in the hospital, recovering, learning how to breast feed and enjoying our new bundle of joy before going home on Friday, Feb 22nd.
So, here I am 6 weeks post partum and still experiencing the "joy" of child birth. After all the in-vitro drugs, accupuncture, 9 seemingly endless months of pregnancy, 14 hours of labor with a malfunctioning epidural that didn’t work, 2 hours of pushing and finally a c-section, you’d think that after 6 days in the hospital that my story would end there. Unfortunately, I’m not that lucky. There have been more complications over the last 2 weeks and there may be more invasive medical procedures in my future. All the while, there are 2 things that keep repeating in my mind. The first is not so very nice thoughts about Adam and Eve...was the darn fruit really worth it??? And second, everyone says you forget all the pain and struggles of child birth. I sure hope so, because I always wanted more than one child, but at this point, I can’t imagine doing all this again!
So there it is. My long story of bringing my miracle baby into this world. I wouldn’t trade him for anything but I sure wish the whole experience would’ve been a little easier! O’well, I guess things can always be worse so I’m just grateful for a beautiful and healthy baby boy!