Birth Story Part 2 - The Induction

So there we were, in a hospital room with a bouncy, happy nurse helping me into my lovely hospital gown. Little Ms. Bouncy Happy quickly turned into my MORTAL enemy. See I have really rolly crappy veins for IVs in my left arm. I get it, it's supposed to be better for them to not be in your dominate arm but that side sucks, they always miss and then I bruise. I tell her this, she started to go for my right and then said, "You know, I think I can get that side, it looks ok." NOT OKAY!! It rolls on her so she spent what seems like 10 minutes digging around, finally go it and can't get the thing on fast enough so I'm bleeding ALL OVER THE FLOOR. Listen, I'm usually not squeamish, I give blood fairly regularly, but feeling my hot blood dripping down my hand almost makes me puke. (I should have... right on her shoes). I'm staring at N (who happens to be one of the best IV getters ever due to his job) like ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Then she gets the damn thing taped down and the hub is pressed too tight in my skin. This thing bugged me the ENTIRE time.

My parents are chomping at the bit to come up so I allowed it. Everyone takes turns coming in to say hello and chat about how awesome this is, we're having a baby soon!!  Then, at 11:15 my doctor arrives. He explains the induction process and checks me. I am still at a 3 and 85% effaced so at 11:30am, he breaks my water.

Now I've been told HORROR stories about how painful getting your water broken is, but I didn't even know that's what he was doing. All of a sudden I just felt like I was peeing EVERYWHERE. Ugh, that sensation makes me feel gross just thinking about it. They started the pitocin and I was left to labor. I send my mom to the store to get more yarn for the blanket I started crocheting the night before. Mainly to get her out of my room, she is starting to bug me. N ate some lunch and took a little cat nap.

By 12:30 the contractions are starting to get stronger, my pain is bearable, maybe a 3 at the peak of the contactions. My dad watches the contraction monitor and makes snarky jokes about how "that wasn't a bad one".. I normally just roll my eyes but now I'm starting to get stabby. I can't get comfortable, my hips are taking the pressure of each contraction and I need to get out of the bed. I send Ms. HB to go get a birthing ball and N to fetch ice and popcicles. My best friend ever shows up and even though I've kicked everyone out, I need here there.

Ms. HB brings in the peanut shaped birthing ball and covers it with 2 pads and what seems like 100 towels, the gushing of my water gets worse when I stand. It leaks all over the floor when I get up, I need a pad and underwear on, NOW. That really grosses me out. Ms. HB assures me she's seen worse, doesn't she understand I don't CARE about her feelings.. I just don't like it! I get on the birthing ball, N sits in front of me on a stool so I can lean forward on his knees, Nicole sits behind me on the bed and rubs my exposed back with a cool wash cloth in between contractions and pushes HARD on my lower back during them. The counter pressure feels AWESOME. If my legs didn't hurt, I could labor here for awhile, things are still bearable except for my feet. My ankles are so swollen that any movement that causes them to bend, is very painful, they feel like they are going to split open.

Seriously, look at how fat that ankle is down there!

My contractions are getting stronger, during one really hard one I attempt to hand N my cup of ice chips but drop them all over the floor. This makes me irrationally angry. I'm so irritable, between the lack of ice chips and the contractions grossing me out with the forceful gushing of fluids, I'm starting to lose my cool. I want to stand or squat but my feet and legs hurt so bad. I have to get in the bed. Now I'm stuck, laboring on my back the LAST thing I wanted. It's so hard, nothing can relieve the pressure, I can't move, I can't shift with the contractions. Everything my body wants to naturally do to relieve the pain I can't do because of how swollen my lower half is.

At 3:30 pm I tell N I want the epidural, it hurts too bad. He reminds me (as he was instructed to do) that I don't want it. I tell him I'm dead serious and he offers the narcotic once first to see. I agree and call Ms. HB and tell her to bring the drugs. I'm told that this is supposed to not necessarily lessen the pain, but just make me not care about the pain. This is bullshit. If anyone attempts to tell you that, throat punch them immediately. The only thing it did was make me want to sleep between my contractions, but given that they were 4 minutes apart, that wasn't an option. My eyelids were heavy, I felt drunk but the contractions still hurt like a SOB!!

At 5pm I said F it, bring in the epidural. Around 530 they do, the force N to sit in a chair while the do it instead and Ms. HB holds my hand instead. It only takes a few minutes (my notes for this story say "Holy awesome feeling") and the relief was instant. I can't feel my legs after a minute so that pain is gone too. The baby isn't a huge fan of the epidural though, we have a couple of touchy moments where the heart rate dips, they put the oxygen mask on me and we're good to go.

6pm: They check me again, I'm finally 100% effaced and at a 6 they give me a catheter since I'm no longer allowed out of the bed. The epidural allows me to cat nap, it's a welcome relief since the cath is uncomfortable and my mother is driving me BONKERS.



7pm: I'm at a 7 and I'm STARVING. My stomach is making lots of loud "FEED ME" sounds. I'm already sick of ice chips and popcicles. I wait until shift change for the nurses and make N sneak me some crackers. I need something in my system or I won't have the strength to do this.

My notes end there so the rest of this is purely from memory, it might need a couple rounds of editing before it's correct.

I was progressing at 1cm an hour. I remember getting out the blanket I was working on and crocheting a couple rows

I finally finished this the night before i returned to work so 11 weeks later :)

I remember napping a little and I remember kicking everyone out around 9:40. I was starting to feel the need to push. It wasn't terrible, but it was there. I told the nurse (not Ms. HB but a new one.. she was like 8 ft tall) She went and got another nurse and they dropped the end of the bed and got the stirrups out. The put N on my left side, and said we'd do some practice pushes. We started "practicing" at 10pm. Practicing rolled into actually pushing around 11pm. They brought in the whole team a couple more nurses, my dr and the student he had with him. I remember them asking if I wanted the mirror down... NO THANK YOU.

They asked if we had names picked out and I told them both our boy name and girl name. Everyone was so excited to see what we would have. I was pushing on my back, I was bitching about the IV in my arm. They kept telling me to tuck my chin to my chest but also telling me to breathe (Ummmm, you can't breathe that way!!!) I could feel most everything. I hadn't pushed the button for my epidural so I could finally lift and move my legs but it was too late, I was stuck on my back.

I got the worst advice ever.. push toward the light... Hey bitch, that light is on the ceiling... how about we change this up and let gravity help? No? Damn it... damn my swollen legs ruining this for me. They kept telling me to push and I kept pushing and pushing and pushing.

The next thing I know the nurses are screaming at me to push, and "helping" me by pushing on my stomach. I can HEAR my stomach growling I'm so freaking hungry, who denies food to a woman about to go through all this? This is cruelty. I can feel my doctor yanking, hard. I scream out "OH Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkk"

Then all of a sudden there is a warm and gunky blob placed on my tummy.

My first instinct is to grab it, scoop it up and bring it to me, I can't get a grasp on it though. It's not crying why isn't it crying... Oh wait, there it is! That little scream breaks me, I cry for the first time. I hear myself say "What is it?"


(to be continued)