Birth Story

Let's see if I can throw a birth story on here before the next event. That's one thing about the hospital stay-there are kinds of random events & you just never know what's coming next. My favorite event happened this morning at 5:30am, when I was finally dead asleep, the lab came in to draw blood! Sheesh! But, I have had a nap and I am feeling pretty good now!

Yesterday, Stephen had woken up a little early (6:30ish) & Sean retrieved him and brought him to bed with us for awhile to watch TV so we could all wake up slowly. Little Mister actually fell asleep for a little while in our bed, which never happens. However, we had let him stay up the night before so we could go to the Friendswood Music at the Park series. We had a blast. Stephen had a blast. The weather was perfect, the music was great. When Stephen woke back up, Sean packed him up to get Mornings Kolaches for me and my mother and sister. My sister came to town, risking that she may not see the baby. I am glad to say she got to be here for the whole event.

At 7 am, I was laying in bed enjoying a little morning by myself. I felt a feeling & quickly hurried to the bathroom. I suspected my waters had broken. However, since I got sent home from the hospital with Stephen told my waters didn't break, I was looking for it to me more obvious. Obvious happened, but I wasn't having contractions. I did what any normal woman would do (chuckle), I took a shower, brushed my teeth, dried my hair, put on some make-up, and curled my hair. I had my Mom and my sister helping me put some last minute things in the suitcase.

To get out the door, I really had to figure out what I was going to wear. Not to look pretty-but-how do you get down the road 20 minutes with your waters breaking and be dressed? I ended up stuffing a hand towel in some shorts. As we were leaving, I asked my sister to grab a robe from my closet that I could wear into the hospital...just in case.

On the road, I called my doctor's phone number. I got the answering service. I found out that MY doctor was again going to miss my birth experience and I would have the on call doctor. I would have the other Dr. Johnson, Doctor Anitra Johnson. She called, apparently the paging service had waken her up & I could barely understand what she was saying. I later learned she had been at the hospital all night. You have to appreciate doctors and nurses for the hours they have to work. This is, after all, Memorial Day weekend.

We got to the hospital a little after 8 am. We answered questions, got into the hospital robe & they did the swab to see if it was amniotic fluid. It mostly certainly was amniotic fluid. Then they checked me. I was ONE cm. I was in inactive labor, but since my waters had broken and I was past my due date, they kept me. The doctor ordered a small dose of pitocin to get things going.

Hours went by. It took forever to get to 4 cm.
My thoughts going into labor came from listening to friends and from my past experience.
Some of my friends that have scheduled c-sections come out of the experience feeling they lost some of the experience because they didn't really feel contractions. From my last experience, I knew I didn't want to feel contractions as long as I did last time without the epidural. Getting an epidural at 9 cm was hard last time. It was necessary, but hard.

The delivery Dr. Johnson came in to see me and meet me for the first time. I was still under 4 cm. The nurse and she started to talk to me about when I would get the epidural. At this point, I was having to close my eyes and breathe through contractions, but, I wanted to hold off. However, they explained that the longest part of my labor would be the inactive part. Once I got to 4 cm, things would start rolling pretty fast since I have had a child. The last thing I wanted was to wait too long for the epidural. I agreed to go ahead and get it.

As most women will say when they get the epidural, it was the best thing ever. I had the electric shock feeling when it first went in & that was scary-but it was all uphill from there. The anethesiologist was great. He got the epidural so I could move my legs and feel the contractions, but not feel too much pain. I was in love with the fact that I could roll over and not feel horrible pain in my hips! It's been months since I have been able to roll around on my hips without horrible pain!!! However, something about the epidural in my back was upsetting the electric epidural pump, so it kept sounding an alarm. That was a bummer and kept the nurse and anethesiologist on their toes. It was nothing that affected me in the slightest.

So, I labored. I had many people in and out of the room. It was really nice to have people there. Lisa and Beth were my two old men in the balcony. They kept a fresh dialog running between them that was interesting and funny. I could join in or, sit and listen. That became so important! They are also the reason everyone could get up to the minute updates. I believe Lisa was working in my e-mail account and Beth updated my blog. We were laughing about the room being so "wired." There were as many as 4 laptops in the room at some points.

Once I got to 4 cm, I did progress quickly. My nurse, Becky, wanted me to lay on my left side and put my top leg up close to my belly. She swore that was a great position to get progress. The first time we did it, I went from 5 to 7. The second time we did it, I went from 7 to complete. I did stay in that position because the epidural machine didn't like it...so, there was about an hour between the two position changes. Becky was motivated to get the show on the road because her shift ended at 7pm & she said it is hard as a nurse to get a patient all the way to the end & then do a shift change without seeing the end.

At 6:42 pm, Sean's parents called his cell phone. While he was on the phone, I started to feel the pressure to push. I told the doctor and the nurse. I then suggested to Sean to get off the phone and move things around to make room for the medical staff. The time of this phone call becomes important because I wasn't pushing then.

The doc and nurse rolled me over & checked me...sure enough, I was complete. I pushed in the first contraction and the doctor started suiting up. All the medical staff started coming in. I started crying...it was happening. The time was here. I pushed a few more times and Joshua was born at 6:58 pm. So, I didn't push long. I also pushed him out before Becky's shift was over.

I got to hold Joshua on my chest for a long time. I pediatric nurse even asked me if I wanted to hold him longer, or, if I wanted her to clean him up. I did send him to get cleaned while I went through the rest of the fun delivery stuff.

Dr. Johnson did a great job of massage stuff while I was pushing, so, I tore only a little. I got some stitches that she said she did for "cosmetic" reasons more than anything else.
Joshua was crying well & I was crying right along with him, because of happiness. They put him on the scale. 9 pounds, 11 ounces. That's all I have been saying in my head ever since....9 lbs, 11 ounces. Over and over. I can't believe it-9 lbs, 11 oz. Holy cow. That's why people thought I was having twins! Some people have twins & both babies together don't weigh as much as this little guy!
He's 22 inches.

I am very happy with this experience. I am about 24 hours post-delivery right now & I feel so much better and comfortable than I did last time.
I may update this story more later.