This is the relatively short and non-gross details version. Following this I will write the EXHAUSTIVE DETAILS version, which is mostly for me, but also for any of those expectant mothers (or women who want to be mothers one day) who are really curious about what actually happens in labor. I ate those up during my pregnancy, and it brought me some comfort both before and during labor to feel like I sort of had a glimmer of an idea of a possibility of the real story of what could maybe happen to me.
So, first, the short-ish non-gross version.
On Thursday, April 24th, I go to work as usual. While I’m there I start to notice a few changes in my body that signal "Lo, the Beginning of Labor is Nigh." These changes can occur anywhere from 2 hours to 2 weeks before labor begins, so I try not to let it excite me, and continue with my day. I get home around 6ish, and Patrick makes us a nice dinner. I’m feeling sort of weird at this point, and every 20 minutes or so I feel a little squeezy squeezy in my belly that I have a sneaking suspicion may just be little contractions. I don’t tell Patrick right away.
I do decide that it’s a good idea to pack our last minute items in our bags just in case (toothbrush, deodorant, etc), and Patrick and I run around and take care of that quickly, and then he asks if he may play video games with his friends at 8pm like he’d planned, or should he call and cancel. I say to please go ahead – I’m fine – and Patrick settles into the office desk chair, straps on his headphones, and commences with online gaming. I am fairly sure I’m having contractions at this point. I still don’t tell Patrick, though he watches me nervously from the corner of his eye while he plays. I sit in the same room with him, watching t.v. I’m not sure if these are real contractions, so I lie down and drink lots of water to try to make them go away. They get more intense. I become fairly certain that THIS IS IT. I am so calm, and proud of myself for handling it so well.
It has been my plan all along to labor at home as long as possible. It is around 10pm when I start writing down times of the contractions, just to see where we are. Patrick is still playing. I don’t ask him to stop. I fear it’s going to be a long night, and I’m in no hurry to begin looking at each other anxiously and twiddling thumbs. I’m doing ok – the contractions are hurting more and more, but they are short, and I can still walk and talk through them, and I am using relaxation and breathing to great effect. Patrick glances back at me in the middle of a big ‘un, and then he tells the boys that he’s got to quit.
He fetches me my Gatorade and birth ball, and we watch tv and I labor until a little after 11pm, when I think my water may have sprung a leak. We call the midwife, and she asks me to do a little experiment to try and guess if my water actually has broken or not. After an hour, I still can’t tell, so she has us come in. "If your water’s broken, you’ll stay," she says, "So bring all your stuff. If it hasn’t, though, you’ll probably go back home, ok? So be prepared." That’s fine with me, I want to stay home for most of this. I don’t want to go in yet. When we get there, the midwife determines that my water is not broken, but I am having contractions. She gives us one hour to walk around the hospital and see if the contractions are progressing me at all. If so, I will stay. If not, I’ll go home. We have until 2:30.
At 2:36 am, she checks my dilation and says that I have moved nary a centimeter, and she’s sending me home. After going through almost 15 contractions in that hour, this deflates me completely. "THOSE CONTRACTIONS DID NOTHING????" I think. WHO THE HELL DESIGNED THIS STUPID PROCESS ANYWAY???" I begin to despair of ever finishing. Meanwhile, the midwife is procuring me a very strong sleeping pill. She has decided that this is not the real deal, and that I could suffer all night and just be exhausted and have nothing to show for it, so she’s going to try to stop it. She has me take the pill immediately, so that the second we get home I will fall into bed and sleep. We drive the half hour home and climb into bed at around 4pm.
45 minutes later, my water breaks for real. I leap out of bed, screaming in a drugged slurry voice that my water’s broken, and scare my husband out of his skin. The water breaking spins me into a TERRIBLE contraction, the granddaddy of all contractions, and it is probably the only thing that could have woken me out of that super-drugged sleep. We call the midwife, and she listens to me make animal sounds of pain into the phone and then tells Patrick to bring me in. What follows is the worst car ride I have ever taken. Oh dear, the bumps. Oh my.
We are admitted in the ER and I am strapped to a wheelchair that I’m doing my best to fall out of, and then taken to be checked. I fall asleep in between each contraction, but at this point there are only 30-60 seconds between them, so this makes for a very strange experience for me. In one corner of my mind I am desperate for that damn pill to wear off, and in another corner of my mind I am thinking "Oooooh, look at the purty pink elephants!"
I get taken to the delivery room, and continue to labor hard for another hour and a half. Someone asks me how I’m doing for pain, and I ask very weakly if I could please have an epidural please? They call for the anesthesiologists, and someone starts an IV in my arm, and suddenly I’m having some sort of seizure with each contraction. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? I cry inside my head, while my voice is only able to make whiny high pitched noises. I’M HAVING SEIZURES NOW??? AUUGHHHH!!!!
As it turns out, that "seizure" is my body telling me to PUSH DAMMIT, AND HOW. Alas, I am fully dilated, and it is too late for an epidural. I can’t believe it. I dilated 8 centimeters in an hour and a half?? Isn’t this supposed to be a little more spread out?? **The theory is that the sleeping pill relaxed my whole body, including the cervix, which made things go a little faster than normal.** So I grit my teeth, and hook my knees back up behind my ears, and push my baby out. It takes about half an hour. Patrick is there through the whole thing, holding a leg for me, and watching until Jack’s head is sticking out, at which point things get a little sci fi and he decides to look away. Suddenly Jack is out, and they plop him right on my belly, and after a few seconds he starts to cry. Some women see their babies for the first time and feel like they’ve known them forever. When I saw Jack, he looked nothing like what I’d imagined all this time. He was a total stranger. This wasn’t distressing to me or anything, and man was I still happy to see him, but for a fleeting moment I wondered if perhaps they’d gotten the wrong baby somehow? This is while the umbilical cord is still attached, by the way, so there isn’t much doubt. I just look and look at him, thinking to myself – so that’s who you are. So this is you. My constant companion these nine months. My baby. My son. It is good to see your face.
Patrick cuts the cord, the midwife gives me my 15 stitches, and we eventually get moved to our recovery room. We stay 31 hours and then go home, a decision which is motivated by my eagerness to get back out in the world, but since then we’ve gotten the bill. I’m very glad we didn’t stay another day!
Well, this isn’t exactly short, but there you are. Relatively non-gross, relatively summarized, but enough details to make sure you think of me as a rockstar. As you should every mother. Labor wasn’t horrific – I’ve been through worse things, if you can believe it – but it takes a lot of courage, and a lot of strength, and a lot of other feminine resources that we don’t even know we have until we are called upon to use them. I know it happens all the time and it’s happened from the beginning of time and blah blah blah – regardless, it is still a singular, mettle-testing experience that each woman has to go through alone, whether she truly is alone or has the support of dozens of people she loves.
I’m glad it’s over. God willing, in a year or two, I’ll do it again, and God willing, I’ll have just as smooth and easy an experience and just as healthy a baby.
And speaking of . . . my post must end as it seems they all end lately. With – gotta go, the baby’s crying.
you did it without drugs? my, oh my. you are most definitely a rock star. i remember contractions so terrible with alana that i screamed at everyone in the room to SHUT UP!!! the extra noise of them even whispering was enough to throw me over the edge.i think every mom has the experience you described when you first met your baby. the baby is a complete stranger, even if you did spend the last 40 weeks or so together. getting to learn his likes and dislikes and his little personality take a lot of time. heck, five years later, i\’m still learning about leah!
I am glad it went fast. I dilated from two to ten in like an hour, freaking everyone out. Strangely I remember a very similar feeling with Zach. So that is what you look like. With Max I marveled at his light colored hair. Speaking of which I gotta go too. Boys are bored and threatening mutiny. ; )
well that wasn\’t as bad as i thought it was going to be…but i somehow do not think that labour should be refered to as not that bad…i don\’t think that anything would hurt more than pushing out a baby…but you have me thinking for sure that i really want the drugs…
♥~♥ :oD the shortest distance between two people is a smile… :oD ♥~♥
Ouch.
Way to go rock star 🙂
<i>Labor
wasn\’t horrific – I\’ve been through worse things, if you can believe it
– but it takes a lot of courage, and a lot of strength, and a lot of
other feminine resources that we don\’t even know we have until we are
called upon to use them. I know it happens all the time and it\’s
happened from the beginning of time and blah blah blah – regardless, it
is still a singular, mettle-testing experience that each woman has to
go through alone, whether she truly is alone or has the support of
dozens of people she loves.</i>Oh man. I couldn\’t have said it better myself. And, if you\’re already looking ahead to #2 – you really are a rock star!Happy Mother\’s Day, Gillian. xo