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| 40 wks |
I woke up the morning of the 22nd to a sensation similar to that which every woman has experienced around "that time of the month" when your sanitary products feel like they're not quite cutting it. I ignored this for a bit until my brain woke up enough to remember that duh, I'm pregnant, and haven't experienced "that time of the month" for nine months. Once I was awake enough to realize something was happening, I went to the restroom to discover that, yes indeed, my water had broken. I have experienced this with two past pregnancies, but with each of them it was a gush and a pool in my nether regions which didn't really let up and soaked through the towels I had placed between my legs. This time was different. Rather than a gush, I would describe it more as an intermittent trickle. However, I was prepared even for the gush this time as I had in pregnancies past, purchased some "adult diapers" for just such an occasion. Honestly, after three years of them gathering dust in the cupboard, I was glad to actually be able to use them. It was 7:15am and I had to get the kids to school. Since I wasn't experiencing any contractions and rather than a gush, a slow leak, I decided to get the kids off to school before calling Patrick.
Once they were off and the younger kids and chickens fed, I decided that rather than calling Patrick, I'd phone the doctors office first. They very helpfully told me that I should immediately go to the hospital. I told them that my water had broken in the past and it was still several hours before anything happened, but the nurse didn't care, she insisted I go to "get my levels checked." She told me that it was important to check how much amniotic fluid I had lost. I responded by asking her if it wasn't true that they replenished themselves every three hours? She said yes, but it was still important to be checked out just in case. With this in mind, I called Patrick. He asked if I wanted him to come home and I told him I wasn't in any big hurry and had some things I wanted to get done first. He checked his schedule and found that if he stayed until one he'd have his eight hours for the day and wouldn't lose any time. This sounded good to me so I decided to lay down on the couch and rest. I woke up from a dream in which the baby was trying to come out and I was all alone so I called Patrick back to tell him to come home. This was 10:30. After talking for a few minutes, my brain woke up and I went back to telling him to take his time. While I waited, I showered, switched out all my regular tops for nursing tops, cleaned up a few things around the house, fed the kids, added some last minute items to my hospital bag and waited.
When Patrick got there around 1:45, he asked if I wanted to go right away or if he should shower first. I told him that I actually really wanted his help hanging a picture above our bed and raising the curtains that form a canopy about five inches before we left as it would bug me when I got home. He agreed and by the time we were finished it was bordering on 3 in the afternoon. Eight hours since my water had broken. I was still experiencing intermittent leaks and had read online all about how long you can go with your waters broken and the risk of infection, etc... But since it was already three and I still wasn't having contractions, we decided to wait and pick the kids up from school. I had been lamenting to Patrick that my plans for this birth had been ruined. Just the day before, the doctor's office had called to schedule my induction for 5am the following Tuesday (of course right after I hung up I visited the restroom and discovered I had lost my mucus plug, making me start telling everyone that now that the day was set I would "probably go into labor tomorrow"). We had made vague plans to go into Denton the night before and see a movie, have dinner, and get a hotel room in town to avoid such a long drive so early the next day and now we wouldn't be able to do any of that. I had really wanted to take Patrick with me to see Beauty and the Beast again and knew that after the baby came it would be a few months before we had the luxury of attending the cinema. Patrick then said we could still go, perhaps to a matinee that afternoon on the way to the hospital. I was skeptical at first, but he soon won me over and we decided to attend a 4:15 showing...but then we waited and picked up the kids and thought; we may as well help with homework first. So we did with the goal of a 5pm showing. By this point I was pretty much ready to leave, but it seemed Patrick was busy in his shop so I sat around waiting for him to come in. Turns out he was hanging around outside waiting for me. C'es la vie. So we finally left at 5:15 pm (10 hrs after my water broke) to attend the 6pm showing of Beauty and the Beast at the movie tavern in Denton. We had dinner and enjoyed the show, even running into some friends from our old ward afterwards. We headed to the hospital around 9:15 and, after getting lost on the way to Labor and Delivery, checked in around 10.
Birthing "Suite"
All of my previous babies have had you checked into a delivery room as soon as you arrive. They assess your progress and decide whether or not to admit you from this room, where you'll stay until you deliver a baby. This time it was different. Instead they had a "triage" area set up across from the check-in desk with three curtained off "rooms" where they assess whether or not to admit you. I explained to the desk attendant that I thought my water had broke that morning and the doctor's office had told me to come in. She seemed skeptical, but assigned me a "room" to change in. Let me tell you, getting naked with nothing between you and the world but a flimsy curtain isn't really my idea of a good time. So they came in and asked all sorts of questions, they couldn't find my Hep B test results, they had to call so and so, they had to wait for a doctor. Eventually a Dr came in and said I was barely a 1 (no surprise there) and hardly effaced and that she couldn't see any liquid. But she dutifully tested to see if I was "leaking" and left. After about 20 min we heard the results come back positive that yes indeed, my water had broken some 16 hours previous. This caused some concern and they told me I'd have to have an IV with antibiotics as a precaution for infection. Meanwhile, we could hear another woman come in very loudly moaning and explain that she was in labor and I offered the nurse to let her "go first' since she sounded like she needed the room more than me, but she said I had already been assigned a room. They eventually wheeled me into a "delivery suite" and left me there with Patrick where we waited for an hour before anyone poked their heads in to see what we were doing. While we waited I heard someone screaming...probably the lady that had come in after me. The delivery "suite" by the way, was anything but. I swear in the past they have been airy with windows and nice wood. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but this one was small and dark with no windows. I know the bathrooms in the past have come equipped with a shower in case you wanted to use it while in labor. This one had a bathroom so tiny there was barely room to turn around and shut the door behind you. It had enough room for you, the IV pole and the toilet and that was it. Even the sink was out in the other room.
The nurses finally came in a exclaimed over how long I had been in there and how they didn't even know we were there. *sigh* They got me all hooked to the monitors and I was very annoyed to find that the triage nurse had put the IV in the "wrong" arm. I have always had it in the left with the bracelets on the right, but this time she did opposite. When I commented she told me how it "didn't really matter." But low and behold, the IV pole and everything else was on the left, but my IV port was on the right. I offered to have them take it out and put it back in on the other side but they laughed me off. I was totally serious. She said it "didn't really matter." So I then spent the next several hours with what seemed like yards of tubing stretching across my torso and the bed to my opposite arm. The nurse didn't check me when we came in. I guess to reduce the risk of infection? Not sure as they weren't real big on the communication aspect of our relationship. I was told that since my waters had been broken for so long they were going to start me on pitocin right away. Awesome. This meant I had to be hooked up the entire time. I had been looking forward to a repeat of my last birthing experience where the nurse encouraged us to walk the halls and sit on a birthing ball and "dance" the labor pains away. This time I was stuck hooked to a million machines in the middle of the night. I slept about an hour or so before the contractions woke me up. They got steadily more intense and closer together (as they do), but seemed worse than I remembered. Turns out everyone was right and pitocin contractions do suck more than normal ones. Granted I have been on pitocin for most of my babies but not the previous one and I could now tell the difference. It sucked. Patrick slept and I sat/stood/laid on the bed through contractions. The nurse came and checked me finally around 4am and said I was a three. Bah. She asked if I was ready for an epidural and I refused since I was only a three and that seemed dumb. I promised myself I'd go until 5 and then reassess. So I then spent the next hour staring at the clock waiting for five am. It finally rolled around and I called for the epidural..(this was of course after I had gotten to my fun stage of labor where I start vomiting on the downside of contractions. If you haven't experienced that, let me tell you puking along with contractions is AWESOME). The nurse didn't check me again, just wrote that I'd been at a three an hour ago as if it was still probably the same. *eye roll*
Epidural Fun
The anesthesiologist came in around 5:25 and I was feeling much better by 5:50. I slept after that and hardly noticed when the doctor came in around 7. She checked and I was a five. She also told the nurses (not me) that my water hadn't completely broken and helpfully broke it for me (cue the expectant gush). Then she left. Not so much as a hey how are you? I slept on and off until around 10 when the nurses started asking if I was feeling any pressure. This concerned me as I was definitely not feeling pressure or much of anything. The only other time an epidural had been so effective was with my first when I couldn't even tell when or how to push. So then I became worried that when the time came I wouldn't know when to push so I asked if they could "turn down" the epidural. They called in the day shift anesthesiologist and explained how the night guy always gives the ladies an "18" when standard is "15." So the guy turned it down to 14. After a bit I asked if they could turn it down again as I was concerned I still couldn't feel anything. Man was that a bad idea. He came and turned it down to "11." After that I could feel stuff. It sucked. I also wasn't mentally prepared to be suddenly thrown back in to feeling contractions. Generally speaking I can push through them by concentrating on breathing in and out. Screaming and causing a fuss makes them worse. This time I wasn't ready. I tried breathing but instead was crying. I started throwing up again, much to the nurses dismay. I was a at a 10 for 30 min or more before the doctor came in and they were worried that puking would make me push the baby out. Meanwhile I keep telling everyone how dumb it was to turn the epidural down (looking for affirmation I think, but no one would vocally agree with me) and can we turn it back up again? The nurse said since it takes 20 min to change it probably wouldn't help as I should be delivering soon, but she did push the "emergency boost" button that would temporarily give me a boost of medicine to numb things. Finally the doctor came in and with no sympathy to my tears and explanation of epidurals told me to "just get the baby out and I wouldn't have to hurt anymore." She seemed rather annoyed at me (who, with my seventh baby, should be an experienced veteran at this point) and told me to grab my legs and push. I said I wasn't ready, but she cut me off and repeated her instructions. So I did and two and a half pushes later, out comes baby Elizabeth. The doctor cleans me up, pats my leg and goes on her way. I don't think she was in the room for more than five minutes the entire time I was there. So the baby was born at 11:14 am, approximately 28 hours after my water had broken.
The baby nursed right away, which was nice but my epidural adventures had made it so I was still numb hours after she was born. They had to insert a catheter to empty my bladder and were very impressed with how full it was (um, thanks?). Eventually they kind of shuffle/rolled me to another bed and wheeled me to recovery. The day nurse, and then the night nurse, all had to help me to the restroom as my left leg stayed totally numb and immovable until around 11 o'clock that night. Consequently I did not get a shower or change into my pajamas. I was finally able to brush my teeth which was a relief after all that vomiting (yuck!), but didn't end up even opening my hospital bag for more than my toothbrush. I didn't see the point of showering when I was leaving the next morning, so I didn't. There was nothing on tv and I couldn't get into anything on netflix, so mostly I slept. Patrick stayed until around 8pm the first day and came with George and Angelina to get me around 1pm the following day. There were mix ups about what drugs I could take, when I could be discharged, whether or not the baby could be discharged. I swear the doctor(s) didn't seem to talk to the nurses at all and nothing they said was reflected in my chart so everything I told the nurses they said I could do had to be double and triple checked by calling the doctor wherever she may be and getting it changed in my chart. The one nice difference from the past were the meals. They had a big menu and I got to pre-select all of my food and beverages. In the past no one has even asked what I wanted until shortly before I was discharged so that was a nice change.
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| Our baby girl finally got one of the "bow hats!" |
