(no subject)
Ok, so I promised the birth story, like last week. And I need to get it all written down right now, before it slips from my mind.
We don't have the videos uploaded yet, and just a few pictures, but what we have is a good enough start.
Ok, so. On Friday night (9/26), if you'll recall, I started having contractions. They were like, 3 minutes apart, so I was like, OK, this must be it, cause I don't know what going into labor is like, I won't know what it feels like when my water breaks, so I had better go to the hospital just in case. We get there, and they admit me and do a cervical check. I was only 1 cm dilated, no change from my last dr's appointment, except the cervix was a little softer. They had me hooked up to the fetal heartbeat monitor and the contraction monitor, and I was still having contractions that weren't that far apart. But I wasn't going into active labor any time soon. The nurse called my OB/GYN and he offered to come in later that day and induce me, to which I said HELL NO because it was really important to me to go into labor naturally if at all possible. The nurse told me "Ok, that's fine. I suspect we'll see you later today as it is, you're so close" and I was like "Psh, I expect to go all the way to 40 weeks, maybe even 41, my luck is NOT that good."
So we go home and by this time it's Saturday at like, 6 AM, and I try to get some sleep. Sleeping through contractions, my friends (oh god does that make me sound like John McCain? my friends my friends my friends my friends), is not fun. But I did manage to get maybe about 6 or 7 hours, I'm not sure. I was still having contractions all day, but I couldn't tell how far apart they were cause I am shit at timing things like that. So we went about our normal daily routine, being online, watching TV, whatever. At around 9:30 PM we decide to go play the lottery and go get drinks. I remember that the lotto machine at our favorite gas station wasn't up for some reason, we had to wait around. So it was like, 10 o'clock proper by the time we got home. I sit down, check Facebook, write a message on Rachel's wall, and then... POP. I swear to god, it's really like that. You hear a pop, feel a contraction, and the next thing you know, FLUID EVERYWHERE. And this contraction, lasted like 45 seconds, and was SO PAINFUL. Like, I thought it was the most painful thing I had ever experienced. Little did I know...
So we get back in the car with the hospital bag and make our way to Ormond. I'm having contractions every 2-3 minutes, and they're lasting for like, 30 seconds or more. They were solid 7s on the pain scale. That was a tough ride. And everytime my uterus relaxed after I had a contraction, fluid leaked out. It felt like I had lost control of my bladder. I don't think I'll ever be able to wear the underwear or the pants I was wearing that night, ever again.
So we get to the hospital, and the male nurse there looks at me like, "Are you sure you're in labor?" and I swear to god he really asked me that. Cause I wasn't having any contractions or anything at that point in time (the change in environment slowed them down) so I fix him with my most intense glare and I am like "I AM SOAKING YOUR FLOOR IN AMNIOTIC FLUID AS WE SPEAK, ADMIT ME NOW OR DIE A HORRIBLE PAINFUL DEATH" so he puts me into their assessment room and I change into one of their lovely gowns with my ass hanging out and I am still having solid 7, 7 and a half contractions. They hook me up to the monitors, and my doctor comes in with the snarky male nurse, and they're still all unsure. They do a cervical check, and I am still 1 cm dilated OH MY FUCKING GOD ONLY 1 CENTIMETER I AM GOING TO BE IN LABOR FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. But once they do that they're able to see that indeed, my water has broken. The snarky male nurse says to Dr. Landau, "yeah, looks like she's ruptured" and I am just like, "HA! VINDICATION!"
So they move me to a private birthing room, really nice, with comfy furniture for family members and gleaming wooden floors. I get set up in bed and as soon as I get comfortable I swear to god I was hit by a contraction that was a solid 9. Oh my god I am so glad that there is something in women's brains that shuts off access to the memory of childbirth and contractions because I would NEVER HAVE SEX AGAIN if I had the memory of that in my head.
So they hook me up to an IV, and we go through all the requisite paperwork and signing stuff and the nurse (no longer snarky male nurse, which is a shame because I really had started to like him. At one point I asked him if I could still drink my Diet Coke and he just shrugged and was like, "Doesn't bother me", lol. Cause once you go into active labor, you're not supposed to have anything but water.) explaining my patient's rights and things of that nature. I'm only dilated to 1 and a half. She tells me that they can't give me the epidural until I'm at LEAST 3 centimeters, and I'm still having the horrible 9 contractions so I just have to suck it up.
So that goes on for a while, lots of screaming in pain and nearly breaking poor Jared's hand, and FINALLY, around like, 3:00 or so they do a check and I'm at 2 and 3 quarters, almost 3 centimeters, so they call the anesthesiologist. When the nurse announced that she had called him, I was like, "sweet, so in like 5 mins he'll be here" and she's like "LOL NO. He has to actually GET to the hospital first, you'll be waiting another 20-30 mins, SORRY." AAARRRGGGHHHH. But since I had been going through this pain for like, 5 hours at this point, 20-30 mins was really nothing. But it FELT like the longest half hour of my life.
So the guy gets there and he's setting up and once again, it feels like it takes forever. But he gives me the epidural, and I vaguely recall, like, feeling the needle about to enter my lumbar and like, physically recoiling away from it. I have a gigantic fear of needles, which doesn't get better or go away, but my pain tolerance is so low that if I HADN'T had the epidural, things would have been much, much worse. Maybe one day, if we have more kids, I'll do a natural drug free labor, but I don't think so.
So anyway, the dude administers the epidural and all of a sudden, there are like, a million nurses around my bed, they're putting an oxygen mask on me, and OMG WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON. It turns out that when the epidural hit my system, it sent the baby into bradycardia (google it, I'm not exactly sure what it is, either), so they have to get my heart rate and the baby's heart rate down at the same time. But what's more, is that as soon as they gave me the epidural, my cervix dilated from a 3 to a 9. I had never heard of that before, and almost nobody I know had either, when I told them about it afterward. So after the trauma of all of that activity, I don't even have a chance to calm down, because it was time to PUSH.
Now, the thing about an epidural is that it completely numbs the lower half of your body. And I had gotten the very maximum dosage, so I was feeling NOTHING AT ALL. Very vague pressure in my bottom during a contraction, but that's about it. Which makes it harder for the body to do it's natural childbirthing thing and to know when to push. And I was trying to push with all the wrong parts of my body, anyway. My feet, legs, FACE, whatever, but not my ass. I had to hold my legs above my head while two nurses flanked me holding my knees, and try to push.
To make a long boring story short, I finally got the hang of it, and at 4:27 AM on Sunday morning, Rhiannon made her appearance in to the world. And I can't even put that into words, what it felt like to see her for the first time, after sheltering her growing little body for nearly 10 months. No words do it justice. But enough about me...
Introducing
Rhiannon Raine Upshaw
Born Sept. 28th, 2008, 4:27 AM
Weighing 5 lbs 7 oz, measuring 17 and 1/2 inches in length
Mommy and baby, 1 hour post partum.
Rhiannon's first picture
Rhiannon at 3 days old
Sleeping on daddy. I love this one, so very much.
This one came out weird, I think it's the angle. I think she's about 4 or 5 days old here.
Another one from the same day.
This is me, like 4 or 5 days post partum. I'm on the phone with my mom.
I took this one, this is Jared's mom. I should have taken it from a different angle, you can barely see Rhiannon in this one.
Blurry Jared and Rhiannon
Plz to be ignoring the double chin. Took this one last night, Rhiannon is 1 week 5 days old.
From the same set.
And again
I really love this one for some reason.
If you got through all of that, you are awesome.
I might make a separate post later on with my thoughts on Fall TV thus far. To sum it up:
Pushing Daisies - YAY I LOVE THIS SHOW
Heroes - Uhhhhh. When this show is great, it's one of the best things on TV, when they make missteps, they are HUGE. I really want to love this season, but the only things really interesting me are Peter, Sylar/Gabriel, HRG, and Matt. Mohinder needs to die screaming now, please. How stupid can you be?
Chuck - YAY I LOVE THIS SHOW
House - YAY I LOVE THIS SHOW but BRING WILSON BACK NOW PLZKTHNX.
We don't have the videos uploaded yet, and just a few pictures, but what we have is a good enough start.
Ok, so. On Friday night (9/26), if you'll recall, I started having contractions. They were like, 3 minutes apart, so I was like, OK, this must be it, cause I don't know what going into labor is like, I won't know what it feels like when my water breaks, so I had better go to the hospital just in case. We get there, and they admit me and do a cervical check. I was only 1 cm dilated, no change from my last dr's appointment, except the cervix was a little softer. They had me hooked up to the fetal heartbeat monitor and the contraction monitor, and I was still having contractions that weren't that far apart. But I wasn't going into active labor any time soon. The nurse called my OB/GYN and he offered to come in later that day and induce me, to which I said HELL NO because it was really important to me to go into labor naturally if at all possible. The nurse told me "Ok, that's fine. I suspect we'll see you later today as it is, you're so close" and I was like "Psh, I expect to go all the way to 40 weeks, maybe even 41, my luck is NOT that good."
So we go home and by this time it's Saturday at like, 6 AM, and I try to get some sleep. Sleeping through contractions, my friends (oh god does that make me sound like John McCain? my friends my friends my friends my friends), is not fun. But I did manage to get maybe about 6 or 7 hours, I'm not sure. I was still having contractions all day, but I couldn't tell how far apart they were cause I am shit at timing things like that. So we went about our normal daily routine, being online, watching TV, whatever. At around 9:30 PM we decide to go play the lottery and go get drinks. I remember that the lotto machine at our favorite gas station wasn't up for some reason, we had to wait around. So it was like, 10 o'clock proper by the time we got home. I sit down, check Facebook, write a message on Rachel's wall, and then... POP. I swear to god, it's really like that. You hear a pop, feel a contraction, and the next thing you know, FLUID EVERYWHERE. And this contraction, lasted like 45 seconds, and was SO PAINFUL. Like, I thought it was the most painful thing I had ever experienced. Little did I know...
So we get back in the car with the hospital bag and make our way to Ormond. I'm having contractions every 2-3 minutes, and they're lasting for like, 30 seconds or more. They were solid 7s on the pain scale. That was a tough ride. And everytime my uterus relaxed after I had a contraction, fluid leaked out. It felt like I had lost control of my bladder. I don't think I'll ever be able to wear the underwear or the pants I was wearing that night, ever again.
So we get to the hospital, and the male nurse there looks at me like, "Are you sure you're in labor?" and I swear to god he really asked me that. Cause I wasn't having any contractions or anything at that point in time (the change in environment slowed them down) so I fix him with my most intense glare and I am like "I AM SOAKING YOUR FLOOR IN AMNIOTIC FLUID AS WE SPEAK, ADMIT ME NOW OR DIE A HORRIBLE PAINFUL DEATH" so he puts me into their assessment room and I change into one of their lovely gowns with my ass hanging out and I am still having solid 7, 7 and a half contractions. They hook me up to the monitors, and my doctor comes in with the snarky male nurse, and they're still all unsure. They do a cervical check, and I am still 1 cm dilated OH MY FUCKING GOD ONLY 1 CENTIMETER I AM GOING TO BE IN LABOR FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. But once they do that they're able to see that indeed, my water has broken. The snarky male nurse says to Dr. Landau, "yeah, looks like she's ruptured" and I am just like, "HA! VINDICATION!"
So they move me to a private birthing room, really nice, with comfy furniture for family members and gleaming wooden floors. I get set up in bed and as soon as I get comfortable I swear to god I was hit by a contraction that was a solid 9. Oh my god I am so glad that there is something in women's brains that shuts off access to the memory of childbirth and contractions because I would NEVER HAVE SEX AGAIN if I had the memory of that in my head.
So they hook me up to an IV, and we go through all the requisite paperwork and signing stuff and the nurse (no longer snarky male nurse, which is a shame because I really had started to like him. At one point I asked him if I could still drink my Diet Coke and he just shrugged and was like, "Doesn't bother me", lol. Cause once you go into active labor, you're not supposed to have anything but water.) explaining my patient's rights and things of that nature. I'm only dilated to 1 and a half. She tells me that they can't give me the epidural until I'm at LEAST 3 centimeters, and I'm still having the horrible 9 contractions so I just have to suck it up.
So that goes on for a while, lots of screaming in pain and nearly breaking poor Jared's hand, and FINALLY, around like, 3:00 or so they do a check and I'm at 2 and 3 quarters, almost 3 centimeters, so they call the anesthesiologist. When the nurse announced that she had called him, I was like, "sweet, so in like 5 mins he'll be here" and she's like "LOL NO. He has to actually GET to the hospital first, you'll be waiting another 20-30 mins, SORRY." AAARRRGGGHHHH. But since I had been going through this pain for like, 5 hours at this point, 20-30 mins was really nothing. But it FELT like the longest half hour of my life.
So the guy gets there and he's setting up and once again, it feels like it takes forever. But he gives me the epidural, and I vaguely recall, like, feeling the needle about to enter my lumbar and like, physically recoiling away from it. I have a gigantic fear of needles, which doesn't get better or go away, but my pain tolerance is so low that if I HADN'T had the epidural, things would have been much, much worse. Maybe one day, if we have more kids, I'll do a natural drug free labor, but I don't think so.
So anyway, the dude administers the epidural and all of a sudden, there are like, a million nurses around my bed, they're putting an oxygen mask on me, and OMG WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON. It turns out that when the epidural hit my system, it sent the baby into bradycardia (google it, I'm not exactly sure what it is, either), so they have to get my heart rate and the baby's heart rate down at the same time. But what's more, is that as soon as they gave me the epidural, my cervix dilated from a 3 to a 9. I had never heard of that before, and almost nobody I know had either, when I told them about it afterward. So after the trauma of all of that activity, I don't even have a chance to calm down, because it was time to PUSH.
Now, the thing about an epidural is that it completely numbs the lower half of your body. And I had gotten the very maximum dosage, so I was feeling NOTHING AT ALL. Very vague pressure in my bottom during a contraction, but that's about it. Which makes it harder for the body to do it's natural childbirthing thing and to know when to push. And I was trying to push with all the wrong parts of my body, anyway. My feet, legs, FACE, whatever, but not my ass. I had to hold my legs above my head while two nurses flanked me holding my knees, and try to push.
To make a long boring story short, I finally got the hang of it, and at 4:27 AM on Sunday morning, Rhiannon made her appearance in to the world. And I can't even put that into words, what it felt like to see her for the first time, after sheltering her growing little body for nearly 10 months. No words do it justice. But enough about me...
Introducing
Rhiannon Raine Upshaw
Born Sept. 28th, 2008, 4:27 AM
Weighing 5 lbs 7 oz, measuring 17 and 1/2 inches in length
Mommy and baby, 1 hour post partum.
Rhiannon's first picture
Rhiannon at 3 days old
Sleeping on daddy. I love this one, so very much.
This one came out weird, I think it's the angle. I think she's about 4 or 5 days old here.
Another one from the same day.
This is me, like 4 or 5 days post partum. I'm on the phone with my mom.
I took this one, this is Jared's mom. I should have taken it from a different angle, you can barely see Rhiannon in this one.
Blurry Jared and Rhiannon
Plz to be ignoring the double chin. Took this one last night, Rhiannon is 1 week 5 days old.
From the same set.
And again
I really love this one for some reason.
If you got through all of that, you are awesome.
I might make a separate post later on with my thoughts on Fall TV thus far. To sum it up:
Pushing Daisies - YAY I LOVE THIS SHOW
Heroes - Uhhhhh. When this show is great, it's one of the best things on TV, when they make missteps, they are HUGE. I really want to love this season, but the only things really interesting me are Peter, Sylar/Gabriel, HRG, and Matt. Mohinder needs to die screaming now, please. How stupid can you be?
Chuck - YAY I LOVE THIS SHOW
House - YAY I LOVE THIS SHOW but BRING WILSON BACK NOW PLZKTHNX.