i has birth story
So. Karen's kids had a tummy bug, and we picked it up when we were at her house on Monday. They had been symptom-free for long enough that we shouldn't have, but we did! Wednesday Wiley was puke/poo city, and Wednesday afternoon/evening, I started having regular contractions that I *thought* hurt, so we went to the hospital to get checked out. I had moved from 2 to 3 at that point, but they petered out when I was laying down, so they weren't real labor and we went home. Thursday morning I woke up and realized that I was pukey. Wiley was totally over it, so lucky him. I spent the entire day *violently* ill. Like the worst most horrifying throwing up ever experienced by me (and I have considerable experience throwing up.) I was having the same sort of contractions as the night before, but only when actively puking and once in awhile here and there. No pain, just tightening, Braxton-Hicks.
About 5:20pm, I wrote an email to my best friend asking if she thought that the puking could make my water break b/c (from the email) "was just sitting here, not throwing up, not doing anything (i had just had a contraction) and i felt like i had an air bubble in my vagina - you know what i mean, right? so i moved to let it expel itself and it blorped liquid with it. it didn't feel like pee, because it wasn't where pee comes out, it was vaginal. maybe it was pee, but i'd be surprised. plus, when i throw up i have pee come out pretty much always and have been throwing up the whole time, so i know how that feels and this feels different. but maybe i'm crazy and it's pee. but still. blorp from vagina?" We emailed back and forth and I also call Dawn and get her to weigh in and finally at about 6:15pm I decide to lay down and see if after laying down I get a gush when I stand up.
So, at about 6:25 after laying down for just a tiny amount of time, I feel this crazy pop in the center bottom of my belly. It surprised the hell out of me - it didn't feel like and was totally in the wrong place for a kick , same for gas. So, I stood up and all of this fluid just gushed down my legs. I was like, "Um, yeah. Thinking that's the water." So I call Angela the midwife who I had talked to several times already about getting me Zofran ODT called in, and the little gush while on the Zofran call, and she's like, "Yep! Water!" My group B strep was negative, so she said I didn't need to hurry into the hospital or anything, and usually within 12-18 hours of water breaking you're in labor. If not, then they'd consider a small dose of pitocin, but that wasn't the norm. She told me to wait until the contractions were regular and then come on in. Great. Can do. I called my mom and told her my water really broke, called Dawn, left Gina a message, and called Erin and finally left her a message because she wasn't near her phone, and puttered around for a minute or so realizing that I had started having contractions and they were hurty. More puttering and gathering of things ensues.
I called Dawn at 7:53 and she had Daniel call Karen, and we were going to have Karen come down and pick up Wiley, but after a couple of contractions I was in holy shit pain and they were about 2 minutes apart by Dawn's tracker. I realized we were going to go in sooner than later and I didn't want to wait for Karen before we could leave. I also couldn't drive myself because holyshit they hurt. They were NOTHING like what I *thought* hurt the night before. Absofreakinglutely nothing. This is when I kicked myself for not being more vigilant about getting through the Hypnobabies course.
Brandon (who I think didn't necessarily believe me when I said my water for sure broke and this was PAIN, b/c he said something like, "You said they hurt last night.") was being sloooow to get himself and Wiley ready and doing things like setting a plate of toast on my lap in the middle of a contraction, and I was like ZOMG OW OW OW OW OW F YOU AND YOUR TOAST. I kept saying that we HAD TO GO, and he should HURRY UP. Gina called back at this point and I was like OW OW OW OW OW OW HATE. She said she was on her way to Boulder.
We finally got everyone and everything in the car (except my bag of clothes which I left in the bedroom and didn't take to the pile of crap that had to go with us in the living room) and started moving after an argument on how to recline the seat in his godforsaken VW that turned out to be a KNOB you turn instead of a lever like every other normal freaking car. Dawn called here and I told her we were going, and she said she was on her way, too and asked if I wanted her to stay on the phone with me during the ride. I started into a contraction and I was like, NO. MUST GO. OW OW OW OW OW. The car ride sucked. I was moaning and trying to breathe, but they kept coming and hurting. I called Karen from Sheridan and 36 at 8:45 and was like, "Can you please watch for us and like meet us outside or something?" She offered like the saint that she is to meet us at the hospital to pick up Wiley so we could go straight there. Smart woman. I had a dream during pregnancy that I gave birth to Halston during a north play group in her downstairs bathroom. I think she was trying to avoid that scenario. Apparently my support team could hear in my voice that things were progressing quickly. I call my mom again b/c she drove like 40 minutes or more to the hospital where I was born and I'm like, "How the shitcrap did you drive all the way to f'ing FREEPORT?" She laughed and started talking and another contraction came up and I had to put the phone away from me. Brandon takes this moment to say, "Who're you talking to?" I'm like WTF? DON'T ASK ME QUESTIONS IN A CONTRACTION! RAR!
After a ride of complete suck, we get to the hospital (and the ER doors b/c Karen had mentioned meeting us there - otherwise I totally would have gone to the normal doors and been PISSED that they were locked) and she got a wheelchair person. I did not want to sit back down, but thought the chair was probably a good idea. The guy got me into the chair and said something about another patient he had, and started walking away. I was like, UM, I'LL WALK. And he's all, no! I'm getting you some one! So some OTHER guy comes up and he starts moving me quickly toward the elevator and asks some dumb question about if I'm feeling ready to pop. I tell him I'm feeling like I'm going to have this baby in the next 10 minutes (because it HURTS, but even I think I'm being melodramatic and hyperbolic). I have another contraction of hate and since I am not in a car I'm like, "I have to get up." and I go and kneel and rock on a bench. He's like, "Ma'am, you have to get back in the chair. MA'AM, get back in the chair." And something about not giving birth in the hallway. So I get back in the chair and we get moving again, and I have another contraction in the elevator. When we're finally up, the gatekeeper lady is asking my name, and "Keely Shaw" said by a person in serious pain sounds like "Felicia" apparently, and these people also thought it was a good idea to ask me stupid questions in a contraction, and the guy mentions that my contractions are now less than a minute apart. Luckily the charge nurse comes out and says that they're waiting for me and bring me in. We swoop into what is apparently the first room, and at this point it's about 9:15pm.
They want to get a monitoring strip for 20 minutes and check my dilation. Getting into that bed was so so so not what I wanted to do. I had finally broken free of the evil car only to be lashed to the evil bed by the straps of monitoring doom. I protested, but lost. Dawn came in at this point (she was on the next elevator) and it was so wonderful to see her. Brandon also came in, I'm not sure when, but soon. They strapped me up and looked for his heartbeat and couldn't find it for the longest time (I kind of freaked out a little there b/c he's usually really easy to find). Finally they found him, but they had to like PUSH the thingie in which hurt like a mofo. She checked me and found me to be FIVE CENTIMETERS. I was like, "ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? THIS IS WHAT FIVE CM FEELS LIKE? HO. LY. SHIT. I cannot do this." I had been sick as a dog all day and totally dehydrated and exhausted, I was in the worst pain of my life that basically started at an 11 and bypassed 1-10 completely. I had thought labor was supposed to ramp up and you were able to get used to each level with your endorphins and other such happy hormones that I apparently lacked, and I'm seeing the number 5 and thinking that I have like 5 more hours at least of this back to back contractions that hurt like nothing I've ever experienced before and they can't find him well enough to get a strip (and they kept PUSHING that thing and I'm all STOP! and the nurse is all, "I have to blah blah blah" and I have another contraction and she's still explaining why and I'm like, "STOP TALKING!" which in hindsight is kind of funny ;) and so I say I want an epidural. I felt guilty for wanting it. Like I had abandoned my whole goals for birth within 10 minutes of setting foot in the door. Brandon does what I asked him to do and says some dumb shit about how I don't want it, and I'm still in the freaking bed that I'm practically trying to climb to get away from my uterus, and I'm like PLEASE NOW MAKE IT STOP. They get me a cold cloth and Brandon's wiping my forehead with it and I'm like, "JUST SET IT DOWN." So he sets it next to me, and I say, "ON MY HEAD, STUPID." I was seriously animalistic at this point. I was squeezing random hands (of people trying to put my IV in), I actually BIT Brandon's finger b/c I needed to bite down and that was what I was holding at the time, and at one contraction I was hitting the bed over and over and Angela's telling me to "go to my breath" and I just wanted to kick her. The IV guy was like, "Do you want to turn over to this side? That seems like what you're trying to do." So I did. I don't know if it helped. That freaking bed!
So, we've not been there very long, maybe 20 minutes, and everyone else realizes that things are going very quickly. No one tells me this, though, and I'm envisioning hours more of evil. Gina arrives at some point here, all I know is that all of a sudden she's at my side. Angela pulls Dawn aside and asks if she's my doula and that her understanding was that I didn't want an epidural and do I really want one, does she think? Dawn says no, and that she thinks if we could get me out of the bed and moving around, I'd have a lot better chance at not having one. I'm still flipping out (don't even realize that Dawn and Angela aren't there), and they come back and Angela sits at the end of the bed and I'm all of a sudden like OH MY GOD! You know when a little kid has to pee, they'll reach down and hold themselves with their hand to keep it in? Yeah. I tried to do that with the baby. I'm like, OMG I FEEL LIKE I NEED TO PUSH. IT'S BURNING! And I swear I could feel his head even though mentally I thought I must be crazy to even think it since I was only at FIVE just 20 minutes ago. Angela says she'll check and steps away to put on gloves and I'm holding my vagina like OMG, and Angela gets back just as I start pushing and says that the head is right there. So that first faltering push I give a little more oomph to, and push his head out. Gina tells me that his head and a shoulder is out, and I'm still like totally dazed and it still hurts, and another contraction comes zooming in and I push for all I am worth and blorp he is out. 2 pushes. No tears. (Though I was batshit crazy and noisy, so I feel bad for anyone in a room adjacent that heard it and was still on like CM 3 and having a normal non-zooming labor. There was a lot of flipping out on my part.)
We got there at 9:15 and had him at 9:43. 5-10cm and delivery in like 25 minutes.
They put him right on my chest, but I don't think I even looked at him for awhile. I was just so out of it and everyone was like, "You did it!" "You had your baby!" and I was like, WHA? Yeah that's neat and stuff, but do you realize it doesn't really hurt anymore??? We had delayed cord clamping, they never got the IV in, he nursed when he started rooting, and when he was done much later, they got me into a shower and weighed and measured him in the room.
When we got moved to the recovery room, Brandon started puking and they made him leave :(