Tuesday, November 27, 2012

3 birth stories in a row. cover your eyes. this could get nasty.

as per the request of a pregnant friend i am going on a blogging adventure with my first 3 births
if you are squeemish please don't read this
i'm not shy
 
 
Izzy
 
i went to see my midwife for my 37 week appointment and was told that my BP was way too high
i was sent into Mercy hospital in Aurora, IL for observation for a few hours
a few hours turned into overnight...which i was not happy about at all
she told me i was having contractions every 2 minutes but i didn't believe her since i could barely feel a thing
around 1145pm i decided to try to get some sleep
sleep? with stupid monitors attached to me?
right
anyways...i was falling asleep
midnight struck
POP! water broke
just like that
i yelled some explatives and told chris to find my nurse
she came in to check me and make sure i hadn't just peed myself since this was my first baby and maybe i didn't know what i was talking about
i mean really? a water balloon just popped between my legs. i think i know the difference between that and peeing
 
chris turned this awesome ghostly white color and was instructed to "sit down please dad"
which he gladly did
within 2 minutes of the flood, the real contractions started
yeah i was surprised
i knew they would be bad but i didn't know THIS bad
i had to lie in bed due to my pre-eclampsia problem which was literally the worst position for me to be in
around 2am chris decided to pretend to sleep
i didnt find out he was pretending until izzy was 6months old
he said he was tired of hearing me moan
haha
oh chris
he has come a looooong way since that night
 
by 8am i was 6cm and my midwife came in to see how i was doing
she let me get up for a little bit
i swore
i yelled
i knew nothing of this relaxing she was talking about
i think izzy would have been born several hours earlier if i had known what i heck i was doing
 
at 11am i got the urge to push
oh thank the good Lord!
at 1220pm out she came!
all gray and slimy
chris started bawling because he thought something was wrong with her
i had tried to warn him that its not like the movies but he didn't want to hear about it
so he had to learn the hard way that a newborn infant is not pink and fat and beautiful
oh no
they are nasty and covered in white slime and sometimes a grayish purple color
also they have a conehead
so adorable!
my midwife said "tell mom what you have dad"
chris said "i can't see! i'm crying"
awwww
so we discovered it was a girl
we named her isabella
chris cut the cord and she started nursing within minutes of her entry into the world
 
 
 
 
Reed
 
i thought that since izzy was born at 37 weeks this next one might come at the same time
but no
he had to wait an extra week just to make me that much more excited to see him
i had been having some awesome fake contractions for months
the night i went into labor thats what i thought was going on
but when i tried to lie down to get some rest i couldn't get comfortable
i still didn't think it was labor
i drank a huge glass of water
then another
then tried to lie down again
no such luck
still miserable
did i think i was in real labor?
of course not
then at 10pm, BAM! those real contractions i had forgotten all about
somehow after each birth you forget what REAL contractions feel like
i think God did that so we'd still want more kids
although now with all the epidurals and stuff women don't have to feel anything
but for me, yes, i feel them. all the way till the end
 
anyways, i started panicing because it started so fast
i made chris call my mom, who we had decided would help with coaching in the hospital
she jumped out of bed, and out of the pop up camper they were living in down the road at the time
and had dad drive her here within about 2 seconds
mom called my midwife when we were on our way to vandy
my contractions were coming 4 minutes apart and lasting 60 seconds
yep, this was not a joke
i was riding in the front seat of our cherokee
NOT a smooth ride
especially with chris freaking out and going 90
i pretty much almost killed him each time we hit a bump
our marriage was hanging on a thread there for a minute
just kidding
but seriously men...chill out on the driving on the wives to the hospital
if they have the kid in the car its not the end of the world
we pulled into the ER, i got wheeled into the waiting room in the worlds MOST uncomfortable wheel chair
and then i was left there, in hard labor, for 45 minutes
yes ladies, 45 minutes of yelling and screaming in a waiting room full of people
 
finally i got into a room and was told i was 5 cm.
phew! no baby in the car
not that i would have really cared
this was about midnight
 
2am i was 7cm
7am....still 7cm
then i started crying
an entire night of labor and barely anything to show for it
i had tried every position, lying, standing ,squatting, the shower, the birthing ball, hands and knees....but nothing
at 10am i finally let my midwife break my water...since i was STILL 7cm. boy did that get things going
let me tell you though, that was the worst part of the whole night.
horrible
horriblehorriblehorrible
the contractions got a million times worse
 
within an hour i was pushing and an hour later out came reed
although we were so excited the whole thing was over that we forgot to even check what i had just pushed out
oops
we were just excited
i remember somebody saying "what is it?"
oh yeah. sorry people. its a boy.
reed was not a great nurser
the first night was miserable
lots of screaming (by him of course) and i cried
now looking back and knowing what i know about him i think it was due to his allergies
a pediatrician would probably call me crazy but i think he was reacting even when i was pregnant with him
 



Hank
 
sweet little hank decided to follow the trend and wait yet another week to make his appearance
i was 39 weeks
and miserable
september is HOT in tennessee
especially when you're fat
ugh
 
i had been having contractions, good ones but not too awful, for several hours that day
i called my midwife
she said "since its your 3rd i better check you just to see whats going on"
so i went in
i was 2cm
for all i know i had been 2cm for weeks
thats just how things go after the first baby
she said "walk"
so i walked the L&D floor for an hour
kept having contractions
still 2cm
she said "how about you go home and sleep and you'll probably have this baby sometime tomorrow"
so i was lying on the bed waiting for my discharge papers
2 minutes before she brought them in i had a REAL contraction
yep...those ones you forget about again
it brought a little tear to my eye
so pathetic
by the time she came back i was in the middle of another one and was white knuckling the bed
she goes "oh. well...i guess i we might not need these papers after all"
she let me get through a few more
then she checked me
5cm
what?! already?!
"ok, lets get you a room"
which i had to walk to...across the skywalk
that was weird
i had to stop every minute or 2 to grunt my way through another contraction
got into the bed for 15 minutes to be on the monitors
then i was allowed to get into the birthing tub
or the glorious birthing tub
it helped
alot actually
suddenly i thought i was goign to throw up
i didn't
but i thought i was
then i remember thinking "this is way too soon for this part of it"
then i suddenly thought i was dying
usually the "i'm dying" part of labor is right before the pushing part of labor
"there's no way" i thought. its way too soon
then i thought "if this is how its going to be for the next 10 hours i'm going to cave and get an epidural or i'm not going to make it"
i remember topher's watch touching me while he was coaching
it was cold
i got very angry
according to him i turned into satan and growled at him "get that watch away from me"
and shortly after that i really really needed my chapstick
like asap people
chapstick!
my midwife said "how about you get out of the tub and i'll see how much progress you've made"
i got on the bed, laid down, and felt a pop
yay! the water breaks!
at this point there was some little nursing student trying to stick an IV in my hand and trying to get me to sign some papers
my midwife pushed her back and said "get away from her. she needs to concentrate and you need to stop bothering her"
 
then all of a sudden i yelled "IT BURNS!"
she went to check me and i heard "oh...there's the head. i see hair"
then chris says "i have to pee"
OH NO YOU DON'T!
my mom said "pee your pants chris. she's about to push"
 
i pushed maybe 3 or 4 times and out came a baby
NOT a cone headed baby. he wasn't in there long enough to get a funny shaped head
he was nice and purple though
he also started nursing right away
i'm pretty sure he was trying to nurse before his feet were out
 
i soon found myself sitting in a rather large puddle of blood
i heard the blood bank being called
i was given a shot of pitocin
then i got really dizzy and sick
but i didn't really care
i had a new baby!
 
 
would i rather have a short really really intense labor or a long still intense but not as much so labor?
i think short
at least it was over fast and i was less tired
plus i didn't have much time try to beg for drugs
 
also let me just say that chris has come a LONG way since izzys birth
he was so lost, the poor guy.
 
he really had no idea what to do so when he was pretending to sleep i couldn't possibly be mad at him
wifes: tell your husbands they HAVE to listen to what labor is going to be like because you're going to make them. even if they don't want to.
he went from pretend sleeping on the couch to saying "hannah. pretend like this is your marathon. you're almost to the finish line. you can do this"
spooning ice chips into my mouth
holding my hand
holding my leg when it was time to push
i am also extremely glad my mom was there for the 2 boys births
i was too embarassed and shy to have her there for izzys
 
but i mean c'mon, the woman has done this 8 times herself so she knows her stuff and she knew what to tell chris to do when he was feeling lost
 
for all you first timers out there i will say this:
if you plan on going natural, don't plan on wearing anything awesome for the actual birth
bring stuff for after
but something about the pain of natural child birth makes you want to be total naked or as close to it as possible by the time you're done
or maybe thats just me?
also i would say practice relaxing
and i don't mean take a nap
i mean relax your whole body
its a hard thing to do when you're at the 30th second of a 60 second contraction and you know another is going to start in 90 seconds but its absolutely necessary to let your body do what it needs to do and NOT fight it
i fought against my uterus when i was in labor with izzy and it hurt more than it should have
i didnt know this until i was having reed and my mom was coaching me on how to chill out
so if it means taking a silly birthing class just to get some instruction on how this is done, i say its worth it
 
also don't be weirded out if your husband is all into the whole experience
chris said he would stay by my head and only look at my face because he was pretty sure he would be too grossed out by the whole birth thing
but no. as soon as i started pushing he was watching everything
he even asked if he could watch the midwife inspect reed's placenta
and he still loves me just the same :)
he even says "after watching you have my babies i have so much more respect for women"


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