This is an epically long post. I started writing it a few weeks after Munchie was born and JUST finished it this week. Not because I was editing, but because I kind of didn't want writing this story to end. I have so many memories of one of the most incredible days of our lives and I wanted to make sure I remembered everything, so this is a VERY detailed post. This is mostly for me and for Munchie. So on her birthday, here's her birth story! Happy Birthday, my Love!
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I
went to bed Tuesday (the 12th) night excited because the Hubs and I had plans
to cruise up to L.A.
to go to West Elm to make our final purchases for the nursery and lunch at
Doughboys, which I was UBER excited about. During the day, the thought
that Le Bebe might show up Wednesday and squash our plans crossed my mind, but
I was convinced that she would be late, so I pushed the thought aside.
I went to sleep at
11:00 as usual and got up around midnight to go to the bathroom and when I
climbed back into bed, I heard two popping noises down there. I laid
there for a minute recalling a post on my birth month on The Bump about other
expectant mommies who had the same experience when all of a sudden I felt a
gush of warm water. I went to the bathroom to check and sure enough, it
was a clear pink liquid. I woke the Hubs and he was completely
disoriented. I had to tell him four times that my water broke before it
finally registered. He went off to call the OB
while I took a shower. I took my time, taking an extra long shower
knowing it would be a while before I would have the chance to do it again. I
also did my hair and put on make up as the Hubs incredulously looked on.
I wasn’t feeling any contractions so I just took my time. I
also started to pack my hospital bag - I just shoved random articles of
clothing in there and at the last minute grabbed a preemie outfit.
By 1:30 we hit the road.
When I got to the
hospital, the waiting room was full! I’d been there a couple of times
before for monitoring and never saw anyone there, so I was surprised when I saw
that it was jammed packed. We went back to the nurses’ station and
another couple was waiting in front of us and remember thinking the other mom
looked nervous, but all I felt was excitement. They checked me in and our
nurse walked me back to the room where I changed into a gown. The nurse
had me lay down so she could check how dilated I was and a huge gush of water
game out and she called the nurses station and told them to admit me. I
was dilated to 3cm and 80% effaced and my contractions were coming 5 minutes
apart, but weren’t too painful yet. My nurse said I could have my
epidural at any time since I was already at 3cm, but advised to wait until my
contractions got more painful as I was still laughing and joking at the time.
I settled into
labor as the nurse inserted my IV. I remember thinking it was painful,
but not as bad as I thought. I think just the idea of it was more painful
than anything. My first nurse was called into surgery about 15 minutes
into labor I was bummed because she seemed super nice, but another great
nurse came in.
Around 4 a.m. I
had my first nurse shift change. The nurse was super sweet. At 7
a.m. she asked me if it was ok to have a student nurse shadow her and I agreed.
The student nurse was awesome.
At 5:00 a.m. the
nurse decided to insert a monitor so they could track the strength of the
contractions. She tried her best, but could not get the monitor in so she
called in the OB making the rounds.
O.M.G - that was
some of the worse pain EVER. The nurses kept apologizing for how much
pain I was in. Even the OB had a hard
time getting the monitor in - Le Bebe’s head was in the way. Finally,
after about 15 minutes, he got in in and I could not be more relieved. I
don’t remember much else between 3:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. when I finally asked
for the epidural. The contractions were getting much more intense and
painful and when the nurse said they would get much stronger, I immediately
asked for the epidural. Within about 10 minutes, the anesthesiologist was
there and he was AMAZING. I was laying on my side instead of sitting up
like I’ve seen most epidurals administered on A Baby Story and I didn’t feel a
thing!
Everyone one says
the numbing shot hurts, but I didn’t even feel it. Five minutes in, the
nurse asked me if I felt the last contraction and I said “No, that’s awesome”
and both nurses started laughing. I couldn’t believe I didn’t feel any
pain at all! I also couldn’t feel my leg or anything from the waist down
for that matter. That’s when they had a student nurse insert my catheter.
Uh, all I can say is thank goodness I couldn’t feel anything.
I continued to
labor from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 intermittently taking little cat naps here and
there, but never really getting any good rest. I progressed nicely and by 3:30
I was 10 cm and finally started to push. Dude, this was the hardest part
of the labor. Since I couldn’t feel anything from the epidural, I didn’t
know what I was doing. I was pushing mostly with my face instead of down
there and it was exhausting! Anyhow, at 4:00 the shifts changed and
another labor nurse came in and started pushing with me. I pushed with her for
about 45 minutes before she decided to let me continue to labor longer to see
if Le Bebe would move down more on her own as she was still high.
I labored for
about 30 minutes and then I started to push again. Pushing is serious
business. I was so tired at this point being up all night and day and add
to that the fact that I couldn’t even feel what I was doing, I was exhausted
after every set of pushes. I was so tired that I asked the nurse what
would the chances of a C-Section be because even with all my pushing, Le Bebe
wasn’t making any progress. The nurse assured me that we just need to
give it more time and that a vaginally birth was totally possible.
I pushed for
another 90 minutes or so until the nurse had to change shifts at 7:00 p.m.
So, here I was on my third labor + delivery nurse and had been pushing
for 3+ hours. The third nurse came in and I pushed with her for an hour
before she had me stop. She wanted to really figure out what was going on
- I had been pushing for a while with little progress. She checked me
during a contraction and noted that my pelvic bone was very narrow. She could
feel all the soft parts of the Le Bebe’s head coming through, but noticed that
the bones were hitting my pelvic bone. She had me do one more set of pushes
and then she said that it would be very difficult for the head to come through
and even if it did, Le Bebe might break a shoulder coming through. At
that point I was done. I had been in labor for 20 some odd hours and
pushing for four with no progress and I just wanted Le Bebe out! AND, hello,
newborn with broken shoulder, hell to the no!
When talk of a
C-Section came up, I wanted to go for it. My OB
was called and everyone started to shift gears for surgery. My epi was
running out and the pain/pressure was getting intense so much that the
anesthesiologist was called in again. It took him a while to make it back
in since he was stuck in surgery and I was dying, but once he upped the dosage,
I felt so much better. I do remember feeling the cold rush that I’d heard
about which I didn’t feel the first time around.
My OB showed up around 9:45 to see how I was doing and I was
wheeled off into surgery. She asked how I was doing and commented how
great my make up still looked. <3 They wheeled me into the room
while the Hubs went to change into his scrubs. The surgery tech and the
anesthesiologist were in the room and they had the radio on...loud. The
room was also very cold. The anesthesiologist got to work numbing me and
to test he took a alcohol swab and ran it up and down my arms and below my
elbow I couldn’t feel a thing, but above it I felt a slight coolness from the
swab. I told the dr and he was like “really?!?” He upped the meds
and then did it again. I *thought* I felt something and told him so and
he said I should be completely numb in no time.
By that time more
doctors had filtered in including Dr. Lee, the other OB
on duty and a third one who was there to observe. They introduced me to
the neonatalogist who I remembered looked like a sweet older gentleman. I
also had my labor nurse and a baby nurse in there. There were so many
people in the room and they were all chatting and laughing. The hubs came
in and sat down beside me. I can’t remember what we said to each other.
Dr. Lee started the surgery and she was happily chatting with the other OB who was assisting her. I think at one point they
were talking about golf, vacations and other doctors.
I was exhausted
and trying so hard not to fall asleep. The Hubs was right there with me
encouraging me. He glanced over a couple of times at the doctor, but
didn’t say much. Dr. Lee did a great job of telling me where she was
i.e., “I’m moving everything over to make way for baby!” She kept telling
me what a great job I was doing. LOL, I had the easy part, I was the only
one not doing anything.
At some point the
anesthesiologist started asking me if I wanted him to hold up a mirror so I
could watch the process.
Um, NO THANK YOU!
He was incredibly sweet, but I was already starting to feel nauseous and
looking at my uterus did not sound like a good idea.
Dr, Lee announced
that she almost had the baby - the anesthesiologist asked me again and I said,
“NO!” but he’s like, “I’ll do it really quick, you’ll just see the baby!” and
before I could turn my head away, he put up the mirror and saw my purple cone
headed baby. All I saw was baby, so I was relieved.
I heard Dr. Lee
say, “It’s a girl!” so my first thought when I saw her in the mirror was, “Why
does she have balls?!” Turns out she was a a little swollen. lol.
They showed me to
her right away and I *thought* I would cry, but I didn’t. The Hubs
however turned red and had big tears in his eyes. I think I didn’t get
emo because I was feeling so nauseous. They started to take her away and
I mumbled, “I’m going to throw up.”
I didn’t think
anyone could hear me, but the anesthesiologist sprang into action and put a
bowl next to me and immediately had some anti-nasuea medicine in my IV. I felt
better instantly.
The neonatalogist
finished his examination and baby girl had an apjar of 9! Can’t get any
better than that. He could hear him saying over and over how beautiful she was
and before he left the room he came towards me and said, “You have a gorgeous
baby girl!” I was out of it, so he repeated himself because I think he
thought I didn’t hear him, I said thank you and he left. He so so nice. I
remember thinking, is he just saying she’s gorgeous or does he say that to all
the babies.
The Hubs left with
the baby nurse and Munchie and I was left alone while Dr. Lee put me back
together. This took A LOT longer than I thought. They had gotten
her out pretty fast, but they took about 3 x as long to sew me back up.
At one point, I
remember trying to stay awake because I didn’t want the anesthesiologist to be
bored, so I kept the small talk up. LOL. Um, I should have realized
most of his patients are usually unconscious.
I finally
succumbed and fell asleep and woke up when they rolled me into recovery.
There the Hubs was holding Munchie and the nurse took her away from him
and immediately put her on me to nurse. She was a champ and started
nursing right away. The nurse was a little suprised that Munchie took to
it like she’d be nursing forever.
I cannot say
enough how AMAZINGLY wonderful the entire staff was from the moment I checked
in to check out. I’ve already heard wonderful things about the hospital -
even stories that people would fly in from different states and PAY OUT OF
POCKET to deliver there and now I know why. I think if I ever had to
deliver anywhere else, I would be completely devastated.
My favorite memory
was in the postpartum room. The room nurse gave Munchie a bath settled
her into the bassinet next to me. Munchie started coughing so the nurse propped
her onto her side where she was facing me. I remember being so utterly
exhausted, but I couldn’t stop staring at my little girl. I was still in
a bit of shock (and totally medicated), but I couldn’t believe she was here.
The Hubs was passed out on the little bed in the room and I kept looking
from him to her and thinking, “Holy crap, this is my family. How did I
get so lucky?”
A year later, I
still think I am so very lucky.
