Labor and delivery

For weeks I had been complaining about achy joints, tired skin, lack of energy, and overall just over it feeling… everyone said this part is normal, but what I couldn’t express is how physically over it my body felt. Mentally I had been over it all for a couple months! Everything at home was done enough now, work days were dwindling down, I even worked an extra week longer to keep my sanity, and the holiday rush was over. I had nothing to do, but wait.

My boyfriend was overseas in training, and we had no idea If he’d make it home in time, but there was no stopping it from happening either way. He would be home January 2nd, my last day of work before maternity leave. He arrived home around 630pm and I was wiped. I went to bed around 8:30, not feeling well, almost flu like. Around 2:15am Friday I woke up to pee, nothing out of the ordinary while being pregnant… this time seemed different though, still not feeling well and now with cramps. I stood up thinking I was done, and that’s when it happened. I knew what it was, but I didn’t want to accept it. I yelled for my boyfriend to wake my mom up. When she came in, I was scared and excited, like mom look what I did! We called the on call Dr. Who told me to give things another 20 minutes to be sure… what the hell would I do for 20 minutes? We made coffee, bounced on an excercise ball, and made sure all the bags were packed and ready to go. After changing three times, we packed the truck and decided to head to the hospital. We arrived around 3:30am and they greeted us at the main entrance. They asked if I wanted a wheelchair, but I still hadn’t accepted the fact I would be a patient now, so I stubbornly walked. The cramps were like your worst period cramp took a steroid pill. I got into triage and explained the order of events while they took vitals and hooked up a belly belt for contraction activity and the baby’s heart rate. Immediately it was decided I was in labor and would move to labor and delivery… again I walked. This room was different, it had a tub, exercise balls, and a better bed. The pain was getting worse, but all in all things weren’t bad. As a matter of fact, my Dr. was on call and would be delivering my baby! I was sooo happy to know the Dr. I saw for the last 9 months would be the first to see and touch my baby. On top of that, my nurse in labor and delivery was an absolute saint. I had obviously never met her before, but when she walked into the room I felt instant relief. Have you ever been dealing with something so frustrating with another person, and then they left to go get someone else, and that someone else who came to help knew exactly how to help? It was like that feeling only without the frustration… I was so uncomfortable and scared, but she was so confident and comfortable with the scenario. So weird. The pain continued to worsen, and so did my flu like symptoms. I didn’t think to mention how sick I felt because I figured everyone would say “well duh, you’re in labor”. Apparently as stoic as I can be, my nurse wasn’t buying it. She asked if I felt okay, and I said no I felt sick. She took my temperature and it was 99.6. Not too high, I figured it was elevated from pain, but again she wasn’t buying it. I already had an IV with antibiotics, but she wanted another. She left to speak with a Dr. and in the fifteen minutes she was gone my temp climbed to 101 something and now I was sweaty, in pain, seeing white things, and completely miserable. I was going to make it through this delivery without pain meds, that’s what I had told myself for a couple months… pffffffft. Wrong. I’m as strong as they come, but the minute the pain moved to my back, I caved. I asked what my options were, replaying what everyone else told me to do and not to do… I could have laughing gas which involved me inhaling with each contraction… As if I wanted another task right now. The next option was Nubane, which I was told would make me feel like I downed a few glasses Of whine… sounds like a dream to some, but i am not built to drink! The last option mentioned was the epidural… I’ve heard stories on stories, but to me, it was the most appropriate for how I felt. It would allow my head to be in the game, but remove the pain… get it here now, was my next thought. My nurse scrambled off to make that happen. In the meantime, the hospital had some scheduled construction work to be done. The great thing about the construction is it was right outside my window… literally I watched a man raise up to my window on a man lift… it was actually funny until they started to pound bricks out of my wall… now on top of it all I had a headache… my nurse called the maintenance director and made a homemade sign in which she held up in the window asking them to stop. My mom also made one and showed it to the guy in my window… they actually stopped! Finally the epidural arrived with another awesome Dr. she was from Memphis and had the coolest accent. It may have been the pain, but I could have listened to her talk all day! My nurse sat in front of me and made sure I didn’t freak while they placed the epidural. I was in so much pain I never noticed they were already done. About ten minutes later, I felt like a million bucks, a million bucks that had been lost in the street and run over, but that was an improvement at this point. Everyone encouraged me to nap… I never listen, but I actually tried, I swear. My nurse had me lay on my side with a peanut ball between my knees and a cool cloth on my head. They even asked if my boyfriend needed anything… this made us both laugh. He said “yes please put my needs before hers if you could”. I was still convulsing from the fever, but otherwise I was actually relaxed. Some time went by and my Dr. came to check in, she said things looked great and we would be having a baby very soon! I said very soon, like how soon is very soon? Today? She said “absolutely today, possibly around noon or early afternoon”. That was less than 2 hours away! I would be a mom… mind blown. Now I’m anxious, too bad they didn’t numb my head also… my Dr. said she would be back soon for us to push! My boyfriend then asked “when are we going to the delivery room”? My Dr. laughed and said “now, you’re here now”… he imagined a room like an operating room and we’d rush there last minute to barely make it… fair enough, that’s how it is usually portrayed. Just before noon my Dr. came back and said it was time to push… I still didn’t feel good, hadn’t eaten, and hadn’t slept, but I was ready to meet my baby. I couldn’t feel anything, but I imagine I had butterflies. I asked how I was supposed to push… they coached me through it and we began… it seemed weird, I couldn’t feel it, but I knew it couldn’t be pretty down there. I was asked to push in groups of three and then take a break. This time I listened, and for whatever reason, on every 3rd push I laughed. It was just such a weird scenario, in a hospital room, tons of people I don’t know, heels to Jesus, and more cheering than a Super Bowl Sunday… the next laugh my Dr. called me out on it… she said “what could you possibly be laughing at right now”?! I said “I have played multiple sports my whole life, and never got cheered on this hard”! We all laughed and I pushed some more. “We can see the head”! That was my boyfriends voice this time… my Dr. asked if I wanted a mirror… I had been on the verge of barfing all day, hell no I didn’t want a mirror! My boyfriend asked, “ is her head facing up or down”? Before my Dr. could answer, Siri decided to invite herself to the room by saying “well, that’s an interesting question”. Again, we all laughed… things just kept getting weirder and weirder. I still didn’t feel right, like an impending doom feeling, but that’s what anxiety does right? I pushed some more while everyone looked so happy and relaxed, but then it all changed. I watched my Dr.’s face go from the warm pretty face she always wears, to stone serious. She told me to push and then I felt a feeling of relief and the baby was on my chest, but as quick as she was there, she was gone. I never heard crying, all I heard was something about her shoulder, and the cord. To this day, I’m not sure what exactly happened, all I saw was her being taken… all too fast. I couldn’t do anything but stare across the room to where she was. It felt like forever, but I finally heard a crackly little cry. Immediately I cried… she was there, she fought through it with me… we needed to see each other… finally a member of the NICU came over with her and said she was stunned and needed to go to the NICU for stabilization and I could see her later, and out the door they went. I just laid there, like what the #@$! Just happened. All I wanted to do was be with her… I cried myself right into another headache… then I noticed my Dr. was still down there… I asked what she was doing and she said “I’m stitching you up”. I replied “oh that’s gross”. They laughed. My nurse was right by my side, and when I looked at her she had tears in her eyes too. That moment, and so many other moments with her, I had never felt so humbled and grateful. A good nurse will be by your side to control your pain, but a great nurse will feel it with you. I asked her “well now what”? She said take some time and then we will get you up to use the bathroom, and then get you upstairs to your room. I had forgotten I was a patient now, I just wanted to see Charleigh. Time passed and I got out of bed, my hair plastered to my face… I looked in the mirror with my nurse and I made some comment about how sexy I must look.. she laughed and said we needed to something about my hair… as mentioned before, hair is not my strong point… I asked my mom if she knew how to French braid, and either answer she gave was going to make me mad… if she said yes, that means she made it thirty years without braiding it, and if she said no, it meant I’d bring my plastered hair right upstairs with me… well she said no, but my nurse said she braided her daughters all the time! She offered to braid my hair and I just wanted to hug her… I may have, who knows. As she braided my hair I felt like a child, scared, whiny, and in pain, but it was making it all better. She asked if it hurt, and I said “no, but when I was a kid I always told my mom she hurt me when she put my hair in a pony tail”. She said “I was curious because my daughter always acts like it’s the worst thing ever no matter how gentle I am”.. For this brief moment I had forgotten everything that was happening…while braiding my hair we got word we could go see the baby! Immediately we gathered my stuff from the room to go see her. This time I definitely didn’t walk… I was wheeled to her room in the NICU where she laid in an incubator. She was in a diaper and that’s it, along with her matching IV to mine, just there breathing. I cried, just staring at her… how was she mine, was she okay, who did she look like, who would she be? I dropped down the side of the incubator, and placed my finger into the the hand of the soul who kept the other half of my heart…