Journey Into Motherhood
This has been the craziest, most painful, most amazing year of my life.
At 3:43 a.m. on Thursday, March 22, 2018, I woke up to back and thigh pains that felt like super painful period cramps. I know exactly what time it was because I always check my phone as soon as I wake up. The pain happened again a few minutes later. I stood up and went to the bathroom, thinking that it might be just Braxton-Hicks contractions. Craven, strangely, followed me into the bathroom. It's normal for Harley to do so, but not Craven. He also put his paws up on my lap. Again, not usual for him.
I returned to bed, but the pains kept happening. I tried to go to the bathroom again. But the pain kept happening. At 4:01, I went into my baby's room, and sat in the blue rocking chair with a journal, a pen, and my cell phone. As soon as the pain started, I would start timing it. I started realizing a pattern of the pains: every 3 minutes, and they lasted for about a minute. After an hour of this, I called my doctor. They called back, and said it sounded like I was in labor, and that I needed to get checked out by the hospital. In the meantime, I called my mom and my mother-in-law, even though it was so early, to let them know what was going on.
Husband and I packed up everything we needed, including the cats. We dropped the cats off at my parents', so they would be taken care of while we were in the hospital. We got to the hospital, on a highway with construction. Which, by the way, is *not* fun when you're having contractions. Every contraction I had, I felt twice as much with the stupid bumps on the road. We got into the Labor and Delivery Unit of the hospital. They took me into triage. In triage, they said I was dilated to four centimeters, and having consistent contractions, so they decided to admit me. I was put in the same room my sister-in-law delivered in four months earlier. By this point, my mother-in-law was there as well. My mom got there not too long after, thank goodness. I needed my mama.
This was where things started getting dicey for me. My contractions were starting to get really painful, and I wanted an epidural desperately. However, I couldn't get an epidural right away. They needed to take a blood sample, to check my blood platelettes, and they needed to put in an I.V. But I have very deep, very tiny veins. They're hard to get to. Over the course of the five days I was at the hospital, I had to get stuck something like twelve times for like three different reasons. So I should have only needed to be stuck three times. My bruises lasted for weeks. I only just noticed that they're gone.
Anyway, because they were having trouble, it delayed me getting my epidural. Husband started calling it the "Find the Vein" Game every time someone new came in to try to get the IV in. But my contractions were getting so painful, I was crying, and saying, "I don't think I can do this! I can't do this!" I also ended up throwing up from the pain. Finally, *finally*, they got the blood sample they needed and put the IV in. They also got the epidural guy in early, to at least talk to me, and get the pre-process started, so that when the blood sample came through and the IV was in, he could put the epidural in.
Once that was in, I was fine. Epidurals are magic! Whoever invented them was a genius. And honestly, I don't understand how women can choose not to have one. They don't hurt the baby at all, since they don't cross the placenta. There are risks, of course, and I suppose it depends on your pain tolerance. But my pain tolerance isn't very high. It's low. I needed that damn thing. It made the day much more tolerable.
I spent the rest of the day tied to the bed, due to the epidural, the IV, and the catheter. Catheters are not fun. Not at all. But I didn't mind the rest, because it meant that all I had to do was lay there and wait, occassionally pressing the magic epidural button. I had many visitors throughout the day. My mom and mother-in-law stuck with me, but my dad, father-in-law, brother, sister-in-law, and grandma all came in throughout the course of the day. I didn't get much rest, but that's okay.
At about 8:00 p.m., at a shift change, I got some bad news from the newest doctor. (I'd gone through three throughout the day.) I had gotten stalled out at 7 cm, when my cervix needed to reach 10 in order to deliver. Plus, my baby was facing up instead down. The doctor, who was described to me as the "Queen of Vaginal Births," told me that there was a less than 5% chance I would reach where I needed to for a vaginal birth. That meant I needed to have an emergency C-section. That was not an easy decision to make. I *really* didn't want to have to recover from a major abdominal surgery. But there wasn't a choice. The doctor gave me a moment to think. I talked to my dad and my mom (who is magic, and already knew that I was going to have to have a C-section, especially since the same thing had happened to her.)
They took husband away, to get him into scrubs. I joked with the nurses who took me into the OR, telling that husband was there when she went in, so he had to be there when she came out. The scariest moment for me was when I was waiting for them to bring husband in while they were prepping me for surgery. I couldn't have done that by myself. It just wasn't going to happen. Husband finally returned to me. They started the surgery. Thanks to the epidural, I couldn't really feel anything but pressure. When baby came out, she sounded like a cat to me, so I started giggling. They showed her to me, and of course, I fell in love. They did a little clean up of her, and then put her on me for skin-to-skin. She wanted to feed, but I couldn't yet, because they were still checking things inside me, and stitching me back up. They eventually took her back, to finish cleaning her up. She fussed until they passed her to her daddy. She immediately calmed down.
They took us to recovery, where everyone came in two-by-two to meet our newest family member. She also fed from me for the first time, and holy carp, baby is a piggily-wiggily! She came out knowing what she needed to in order to nurse. (Mommy on the other hand had some issues.) That night, we did send baby to the nursery, because husband and I had been up for almost 24 hours at that point. We got a little sleep, then they brought the baby back. The night nurse told us that every time she went in to check on the baby, she was in a different nurse's arms.
The baby is gorgeous! And that's not just a proud mama speaking. Everyone told me that she's one of the prettiest babies they've ever seen. She looks like her father's twin, with dark eyes and dark hair.
Here we are, five months later, and she has started developing her personality. She loves to talk. My little Chatty Cathy. She seems to have no fear. We took her to her first Halloween store. She had no fear of the animatronics, and was, in fact, obsessed with one of the creepy clowns.
At 3:43 a.m. on Thursday, March 22, 2018, I woke up to back and thigh pains that felt like super painful period cramps. I know exactly what time it was because I always check my phone as soon as I wake up. The pain happened again a few minutes later. I stood up and went to the bathroom, thinking that it might be just Braxton-Hicks contractions. Craven, strangely, followed me into the bathroom. It's normal for Harley to do so, but not Craven. He also put his paws up on my lap. Again, not usual for him.
I returned to bed, but the pains kept happening. I tried to go to the bathroom again. But the pain kept happening. At 4:01, I went into my baby's room, and sat in the blue rocking chair with a journal, a pen, and my cell phone. As soon as the pain started, I would start timing it. I started realizing a pattern of the pains: every 3 minutes, and they lasted for about a minute. After an hour of this, I called my doctor. They called back, and said it sounded like I was in labor, and that I needed to get checked out by the hospital. In the meantime, I called my mom and my mother-in-law, even though it was so early, to let them know what was going on.
Husband and I packed up everything we needed, including the cats. We dropped the cats off at my parents', so they would be taken care of while we were in the hospital. We got to the hospital, on a highway with construction. Which, by the way, is *not* fun when you're having contractions. Every contraction I had, I felt twice as much with the stupid bumps on the road. We got into the Labor and Delivery Unit of the hospital. They took me into triage. In triage, they said I was dilated to four centimeters, and having consistent contractions, so they decided to admit me. I was put in the same room my sister-in-law delivered in four months earlier. By this point, my mother-in-law was there as well. My mom got there not too long after, thank goodness. I needed my mama.
This was where things started getting dicey for me. My contractions were starting to get really painful, and I wanted an epidural desperately. However, I couldn't get an epidural right away. They needed to take a blood sample, to check my blood platelettes, and they needed to put in an I.V. But I have very deep, very tiny veins. They're hard to get to. Over the course of the five days I was at the hospital, I had to get stuck something like twelve times for like three different reasons. So I should have only needed to be stuck three times. My bruises lasted for weeks. I only just noticed that they're gone.
Anyway, because they were having trouble, it delayed me getting my epidural. Husband started calling it the "Find the Vein" Game every time someone new came in to try to get the IV in. But my contractions were getting so painful, I was crying, and saying, "I don't think I can do this! I can't do this!" I also ended up throwing up from the pain. Finally, *finally*, they got the blood sample they needed and put the IV in. They also got the epidural guy in early, to at least talk to me, and get the pre-process started, so that when the blood sample came through and the IV was in, he could put the epidural in.
Once that was in, I was fine. Epidurals are magic! Whoever invented them was a genius. And honestly, I don't understand how women can choose not to have one. They don't hurt the baby at all, since they don't cross the placenta. There are risks, of course, and I suppose it depends on your pain tolerance. But my pain tolerance isn't very high. It's low. I needed that damn thing. It made the day much more tolerable.
I spent the rest of the day tied to the bed, due to the epidural, the IV, and the catheter. Catheters are not fun. Not at all. But I didn't mind the rest, because it meant that all I had to do was lay there and wait, occassionally pressing the magic epidural button. I had many visitors throughout the day. My mom and mother-in-law stuck with me, but my dad, father-in-law, brother, sister-in-law, and grandma all came in throughout the course of the day. I didn't get much rest, but that's okay.
At about 8:00 p.m., at a shift change, I got some bad news from the newest doctor. (I'd gone through three throughout the day.) I had gotten stalled out at 7 cm, when my cervix needed to reach 10 in order to deliver. Plus, my baby was facing up instead down. The doctor, who was described to me as the "Queen of Vaginal Births," told me that there was a less than 5% chance I would reach where I needed to for a vaginal birth. That meant I needed to have an emergency C-section. That was not an easy decision to make. I *really* didn't want to have to recover from a major abdominal surgery. But there wasn't a choice. The doctor gave me a moment to think. I talked to my dad and my mom (who is magic, and already knew that I was going to have to have a C-section, especially since the same thing had happened to her.)
They took husband away, to get him into scrubs. I joked with the nurses who took me into the OR, telling that husband was there when she went in, so he had to be there when she came out. The scariest moment for me was when I was waiting for them to bring husband in while they were prepping me for surgery. I couldn't have done that by myself. It just wasn't going to happen. Husband finally returned to me. They started the surgery. Thanks to the epidural, I couldn't really feel anything but pressure. When baby came out, she sounded like a cat to me, so I started giggling. They showed her to me, and of course, I fell in love. They did a little clean up of her, and then put her on me for skin-to-skin. She wanted to feed, but I couldn't yet, because they were still checking things inside me, and stitching me back up. They eventually took her back, to finish cleaning her up. She fussed until they passed her to her daddy. She immediately calmed down.
They took us to recovery, where everyone came in two-by-two to meet our newest family member. She also fed from me for the first time, and holy carp, baby is a piggily-wiggily! She came out knowing what she needed to in order to nurse. (Mommy on the other hand had some issues.) That night, we did send baby to the nursery, because husband and I had been up for almost 24 hours at that point. We got a little sleep, then they brought the baby back. The night nurse told us that every time she went in to check on the baby, she was in a different nurse's arms.
The baby is gorgeous! And that's not just a proud mama speaking. Everyone told me that she's one of the prettiest babies they've ever seen. She looks like her father's twin, with dark eyes and dark hair.
Here we are, five months later, and she has started developing her personality. She loves to talk. My little Chatty Cathy. She seems to have no fear. We took her to her first Halloween store. She had no fear of the animatronics, and was, in fact, obsessed with one of the creepy clowns.