[Part One]
The Birth Story – Getting Situated
On Tuesday, March 1, I went to the hospital at the pre-appointed time. The bags had been ready for days, the nails were freshly painted and the anticipation couldn’t be higher. We knew exactly where to go from the tour we took a month earlier. When we gave the nurses our information, they actually told us come back in an hour. So we went to Sonic and I was forced to decide what color drink I may or may not puke up later. I decided on purplish pink (grape watermelon). It was a gorgeous day, so we walked around the parking lot with our Sonic drinks talking about all things we were looking forward to doing with our baby girl.
By 6 o’clock, they had a room ready for us so we got settled in. It was very spacious. It had a couch, a couple comfy chairs and a nice view. I felt very comfortable already. It wasn’t long before we met our first nurse who got everything set up. Gown on, monitors set. Very anti-climactic. Except for the part where they let an intern set-up my IV. It didn’t bother me as much as it should have (you’ll see).
The first step in the inducement process is what the call Cervadil and the main goal is just to “encourage” my body to start labor on its own. So my first 10 hours in the hospital were spent waiting for something to happen. Fortunately, they gave me sleeping medicine and left me alone. Who goes to the hospital to give birth and gets a full night’s sleep? Yeah, I wasn’t going to question it. I accepted it and fell asleep.
The side effect of the Cervadil was mild cramping, so when I woke up around 4am with bad cramps, I just ignored it and tried to go back to sleep. It didn’t work particularly well, so by the time the nurse came in at 6am, I was wide awake and fully convinced I was feeling more than cramps. Pleased with the progress my body was making, we went forward with the induction plan (as opposed to scrapping the whole thing for a C-section as threatened by doc if things didn’t progress). The nurse, who wasn’t as nurturing as my first nurse, administered the Pitocin.
For those who aren’t familiar with Pitocin, it REALLY encourages the body to go into labor as QUICKLY as possible. Before I knew it, those “cramps” I had been feeling were officially contractions and they were officially painful. The Lamaze class had engrained the concept of distraction, so I gathered up my cords, moved to the birthing ball, propped the laptop on a table and watched the very hilarious but unfortunately not distracting enough, Zoolander. My hubster knew the contractions were bad when I winced in the middle of Derek counting syllables on his hand instead of laughed. It was time for the epidural.
After 6 hours of contractions that were only 2 minutes apart, I was more than ready for some relief. Eventually, the anesthesiologist came and with him, glorious relief, well, of course after one more burst of pain.
Getting the epidural was more painful than any contraction I had felt, but suddenly, I felt no more pain at all. I felt nothing at all. I didn’t even care when another nursing student administered my catheter. I didn’t care about anything. I just wanted to sleep. So I did. For the next 6 hours. I stirred when the nurses checked the monitors and rolled over when they said. I feigned conversation with my husband his parents. I even occasionally updated my facebook and texted my coworkers. But mostly, I slept. Glorious, wonderful, pain-free, sleep.
[Part Three]
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