Babble

i am so excited to be FINALLY able to share my birth story! on wed may 9th at about 10 am i noticed some bloodyish mucous when i woke up- i forced myself to not freak out (first time momma) and go about my day as usual which meant placing a frantic call to my mom asking if everything was normal and finishing the last minute details around the house that i had been avoiding since the baby was overdue by about a week.....

my husband got home from work around 2 pm to me on the couch saying "um i think i am going to have a baby today or tomoro" we waited and waited for contractions to really start... around 7 pm i ate some jerk chicken and spicy red beans and rice and pineapple determined to jump start the contractions and what do ya know? at about 10pm i felt the first real labor contraction. hubby went to bed and i walked around the neighborhood with the dog.... by 2am i was defiantly in pain "Yippee labor call the midwife!"

we called only to have to hear well you should call back when the contractions get to be 2 minutes apart.... hubby broke out the watch and pen and paper (he felt he had to write each one down to keep himself calm)  we called again at at 5 and went to the hospital.i was 5 cms and 70% so i was admitted and we hung out in the birthing room watching bad tv and keeping me calm (i pretty much forgot everything we learned in class)

by 11am i was finally at 10 cm after having my water broken and i was beginning to feel his head move down a little bit... 2pm came and the midwife said "well now we are just waiting for an irresitable urge to push" about ten minutes later i was yelling for her to come back into my room cause i had to get this kid out!

two hours (which felt like a million years) later and a lot of screaming (literally bloodcurdling screaminf which surprised me i thought i would be quiet) later i was presented with a gooey but beautiful baby boy who immediatly rooted for my breast and made my very stoic hubby cry.

i never thought i would make it through the whole thing with no drugs, but i did (though i am sure my yells which were more of a focus on the task at hand than from real pain, though the burning oh the burning as he crowned, made a few people on the floor with me beg for an epidural) and now i feel like i can do anything.

a few hours later i was walking around the recovery floor with the newly born Jospeph Padraic a long lanky 20 inch 7 lb 10 oz  bundle of joy

One or two visits before my due date my doctor asked me, again, what date we had planned for the cesarean. I gave him, as I had all along, the date as close to my due date, Feb. 23, as possible. He said, as he had all along, ‘I’d like to make it earlier’. He had moved it up twice already. Now he was planning a trip to Mexico and, despite having argued otherwise (his words), his wife insisted they were leaving on the 20^th. My baby would be born according to their schedule on Feb. 19. I had investigated every possibility to avoid a cesarean, short of risks I was not willing to take. Along the way, I kept bargaining with nature—let me have the baby early. Then, just let me have contractions. At some point, a day or two ahead of the 19^th, President’s Day, I had to let go. I had to allow the excitement of the birth, not the bummer of surgery, win. Now, the work that I did to plan and to keep myself strong would pay off in the operating room and in recovery. That morning as I sat with my husband and sister prepping for surgery, my excitement was visible. I had prepared a birth plan and distributed it to the right people. I had gone to a midwife for the first part of my pregnancy, so my doctor knew I would have preferred a natural birth. For the birth, I was able to do several things that even the intern that day said wouldn’t be possible. (It helped that my doc was the head of the department.) Throughout the surgery, I held a bead necklace that the women at my shower had made. My husband brought a video camera into the operating room. The staff set up our CD player with our Mozart DC playing. The doc had the table turned so I could see the baby cleaned up after the birth. My husband sat next to me as they started. Just as he was about to take the baby out, the doctor told my husband to point the video camera over the curtain that hung between us and my lower abdomen. My husband turned the viewing screen toward me, and I watched as the doctor pulled our little baby boy from my uterus. I cried the same cry of elation that I had more than 20 years earlier watching my sister’s son born naturally at home. Now, they took Owen and put him on the table to my right. “He’s perfect,” I cried. He looked full and healthy and strong. I felt so proud watching this baby adjust to his new world—crying and then calming down. He had funny toes, someone said. Just like my grandmother, I said. After they wrapped him up, the nurse brought him over to me so I could touch him and talk to him briefly. My husband followed him out of the operating room and watched him as he went through the hospital process. The video camera rolled. I plan to watch that video some day. For now, I like to keep my memory as I have it. As for Mozart, I already know his music will never sound the same.

Owen, born 8 lbs. 8 oz. and 21.5 inches.

Baby Cakies, thanks for directing me to these posts!  It's very helpful to read the variety of positive stories.  Hopefully I'll have one of my own to share in 11 weeks.

 Hullo...can't believe I'm posting this but I'm wide awake and watching my husband and son sleep on the couch together and it's making me remember his birth so here goes. It won't be as detailed with time stamps and such like others because 1: I'm forgetful and 2: I was not looking at the clock...much less remembering! However I hope that someone enjoys it as it was one of the happier and funnier things that has happened to me.

Damien Draakus Jessmon
February 23, 2008
12:14pm
20 1/2 inches long
14 3/4 head
10 lbs at birth(9lbs 2 oz. 7 hours later when weighed. He pooped 4 times before it)

Well first my labor didn't happen all at once. No...it took a full week for my body to work into it. It was February 13th 2008 and my husband and I went to my appointment as per usual. The doctor breezed on in, talked a little, and then proceeding to tell us as he was examining us that my plug apparently was already gone. We're surprised of course and just continue on our merry little way. The next day we're fooling around playing video games and joking that Damien(yes we already picked out a name...we've had it in mind for years) might decide to come out before my family came on down on the 21st since my induction date was set on the 22nd. I get up after feeling all weird, like I had bled into my underwear and discover this weird yellowish bloody lumpy thing sitting in my undies. naturally I'm both repulsed and yet fascinated. I call Casey(my husband) on in to look at it and tell me just what the bloody hell it was. He takes a picture of it in a napkin (which we still have!^^) and we deduce after a few calls that it's my mucus plug! The entire rest of it just fell out!

We freak out some and I have some weird contraction feelings so we go to the hospital. They send us home after a bit. We end up going there at least three more times before I actually give birth because of the intense contractions that last for an hour or two at night and then go away. However, the last time we go there before the birth when we were really experiencing painful ones (ones where it felt like if I had balls, they were dropping and being kicked) I accepted the pain medication. Now, apparently the pain medication was a light dosage of something related to Novocain...only 10 ml. They administer that into my butt and soon after everything starts moving. I'm lying there watching things jumping toward me making my eyes stay wide and my mind drift right the hell away. Apparently though I was muttering about not wanting my shoes put back on my feet because they were evil and trying to eat my toes. I couldn't walk without nearly falling and was so far gone that I took everything around me  as a threat. They wheel me out to the car where I promptly throw up all over the sidewalk while Casey and the nurse are agreeing that 10ml was too much for me.

Well Casey manages to get me home, carrying me on inside but laying me on the floor at one time because he was exhausted. I yelled about the floor being fake tile and then that it was trying to drown me. Either way, after a few hours of lucidness where I couldn't move very well and threw up twice more we didn't want to try the hospital again unless my water freaking broke. So we continue on until the 22nd where we have an appointment for induction through Misol or whatever...the pill they stick up you to assist in softening the cervix.

So my family had arrived the 21st and wanted to go to the beach. I was anxious because the hospital couldn't take us in yet because  so many women were there giving birth that they had no room for us yet. So at about 5pm we make it to the beach where it's slightly chilly and yet nice. As I anticipated Casey gets a call from the hospital saying that they were ready for us to come on in and be prepared if we wanted. So we hug my family goodbye and tell them to enjoy the beach a bit. We end up sitting there for hours with contractions that hurt so bloody bad and aren't made better by the stupid family next to us in the little room. The 15 year old pregnant girl had her mother, sister, sister's 4 year old girl, aunt, and brother all there talking loudly, munching on snakes, drinking soda, and generally making me want to reach over and kill all of them. Casey found it hilarious to see me silently seething and muttering under my breath as Damien tumbled inside, obviously pissed as well.

So finally at 8pm our nice doctor comes in and after talking and checking on me discovers that I'm not very dilated. I'm still at 2cm 75% effaced and not budging. So she administers the pill inside me. We wait until the noisy family leaves (the girl had a UTI from drinking only soda while pregnant) so we can walk around, maybe move the contractions along. We end up walking the floor outside the ward so we can be slightly louder because we are laughing and joking. I stop every few moments to let the contraction pass before we continue on smiling and making the oddest conversation.

11pm(Still 2/22/08)=They check me out and say that nothing has changed. They ask if we want to go home and rest. We decline because we live 40 minutes away and are afraid that we won't make it in time if we go back home. They say okay and after giving me a lower dosage of the same medicine from before (5ml this time), set us up in a room on the floor to sleep. Ya sleep!

3am(Now 2/23/08)=Another check-up where they discover my cervix has opened up to 4cm in just two hours! So they hustle me on over to the birthing room where they have bigger showers, suggesting that maybe the hot water will help relax me and dull the pain. I take a nice long one and feel so much better it's almost pathetic. I step out onto the towel as my husband helps me dry.
Suddenly I feel liquid running down my leg in trickles. I look down and am horrified. I was afraid I was peeing myself and not knowing it. I tested it though and found I still had awesome control over my bladder so my husband runs and asks if my water just broke to the nurses. They get me into the bed in the room and confirm it.

So now the contractions are coming closer and harder than ever. I begin to shake violently, my limbs not under my control anymore. I start to feel nauseous and quickly have a bucket put in front of me. Up comes the little bit I had to drink in the hospital. Then blood began to come up. So the discussion moves to whether I want an epidural or not. Casey and I had anticipated it and we accept. So now it's about 5am and the anesthesiologist comes in. Mind you I've been blacking out from the pain and shaking so much that the monitor on my belly slips off. They try getting me to sign the paper. I'm trying my hardest but the guy is being a dick saying he can't do it till I sign. I'm shaking violently, the pen clutched weakly in my hand as I finally scrawl out a semblance of my name.

He begins to go about putting the needle in but the nurses have to hold me steady lest my shaking fits jostle the needle wrong. Once it's put it and the medication administered I begin to drift off. I pass out until 9am when I'm told me family has arrived by Casey. They come in and we talk some, me all woozy and tired but still cracking jokes. After we decide the 4 people to stay in the room (Husband, my mum, my dad, husband's mum) the nurse begins to prep me. Casey and Jodie(my MIL) hold my legs up on either side as I push and the nurse stretches me, getting it all ready down there for the pushing later since I was opened up to 9cm! I pooped about 4 times, getting a big smile on my face because damn it felt so good especially since I didn't have to wipe it up!

10:30am(2/23/08)=The doctor comes in and everything begins to get down to business. I start pushing with the help from Casey and Jodie still, having picotin administered as well so the contractions keep coming. I begin to feel the pain now and do not like it! It's about 11:30 or so when my feet are slipped into stirrups and I start really pushing Damien on out. I didn't watch because I really didn't want to see his head there however Casey peeked at it. I had to pause right after his head crowned because his umbilical cord was wrapped twice about his neck. They untangle it quickly and I push again, managing to push him all the way out at 12:14pm.

The doctors and nurses are all surprised because he's this huge baby at nearly ten pounds out of little me who didn't even look nine months pregnant! He just has his eyes open staring at everyone until they set him on the table and begin to clean him up. Then he screams, making me smile knowing he's okay...and pissed off!

So that's my birth story. He was the biggest baby born from 2/22 to 2/23 out of the five other women who had given birth just the day before. All the others were at 7 lbs or so...but out he comes at this huge amount and with pretty red hair! Anyway, I don't regret the epidural and really am glad that I was prepared so well. I had two minor tears on my inner wall and cervix because he basically ripped my cervix open. It wouldn't open right...but he's here now and totally worth it when he smiles.

^-^ All done!