We got back to the house and I said my goodbyes to Bun and
Wally. I wasn’t hungry, but I knew if I
didn’t eat something now, I may not be eating for a while. All I could manage to get down was a protein
bar. We left the house about 4:30 and
got to the labor and delivery unit about 5:00.
The nurse walked us back to my room and left for a minute to go get
something. When she left I sat down on
the couch and started crying. I wasn’t
ready for this. I wasn’t ready to be in
the hospital. I wasn’t ready to have a
baby. I wasn’t ready to grow up.
The nurse came back and I eventually stopped crying. She gave me a hospital gown to change
into. Once changed and in bed, the nurse
went over my medical history with me and tried to start an IV in my left
hand. My vein didn’t cooperate so she
pulled the needle out and called the IV tech to come start one. There was a lump and bruise forming that hurt
every time the blood pressure cuff inflated.
The IV tech came in and tried to start one in my left forearm. That didn’t work either so she tried again in
my right hand. That one actually
worked. But she still had to draw blood,
but due to the way that she had to start the IV she couldn’t draw from that so
she had to do a separate poke in my left arm.
Since they hadn’t started the induction yet I was able to
order dinner, but due to the diabetes, I was still on a restricted diet. I ordered a burger thinking it couldn’t be
worse than a fast food burger. I was
wrong, it was terrible. The only reason
I ate so much of it was because it was going to be my last meal until the baby
was out. At 7:15 the nurse came in and
started the Pitocin. About 9:30 the
midwife came in to see how dilated I was and decided to break my water. I was a little freaked out because I didn’t
have any warning or maybe I was still in denial about being in labor.
At 10:30 I called the nurse to request an epidural. The pain wasn’t horrible, but I knew by the
time the anesthesiologist came I would probably be hurting worse and I was. And it did.
While he was trying to start the epidural the pain was so bad it took my
breath away. I kept trying to focus on
Bun and how soft she was, but it didn’t help.
After a few minutes of working, he asked the nurse for a bigger needle
as the one he was using ended up being too small. A bigger needle?!? Will it ever go right the first time stabbing
me? (Are you keeping track of the times
I’ve been stuck? Don’t forget to add in
the blood sugar test after I ate). After
what seemed like an eternity the pain started easing up until it was basically
gone.
The good news was I didn’t feel any pain with contractions,
the bad news was that the baby had shifted positions and was pressing on a
nerve so no matter how I was positioned in the bed, I had a constant pain. I was at least able to sleep a little bit
that night and at 7:30 the next morning the new nurse came in to start prepping
the room for delivery. Did I hear her
right, prepping for delivery? The next
hour and a half seemed like it went by in mere minutes because before I knew it
I had to start pushing. The room filled
up fast; there was the nurse, a nursing student, the midwife, the midwife’s
apprentice and a few people from the NICU since there was meconium in the
amniotic fluid. After every push the
midwife kept telling me “just two more pushes.”
If it weren’t for the fact that I was concentrating on not pooping on
the table (which I didn’t, yay), I would have yelled at her for lying to
me. Bickering was not uncommon while I
was pushing as the midwife was getting telling off the nurse between
contractions. Hashtag awkward.
After approximately 14 hours of labor and 38 minutes of
pushing, there was a baby on my chest.
Wait. Where did this baby come
from? Was this really what I had been incubating
for the last 37 weeks? What do I do now?
