Everything you wanted to know about labor (but were too afraid to ask...)

This blog was promised two weeks ago, and I figure I better write about the birthing experience before I forgot about it. I’m just kidding, I’ll never forget it. Ever.

I was 31 weeks along. Andy and I had just picked out the paint colors for the nursery. We would be painting the next weekend. I was just about to put on some shoes to take Butters for a walk that Monday afternoon. My water broke in one of those Hollywood ways... you know, you are standing there and then there is a gush. Luckily I was at home.  I kept asking myself, "wait, is that? did I? I don't even?"  I didn’t know what to do. instinct told me to call my mom.

"Hi, mom... uh... don’t read too deep into this... but how can you tell when your water breaks?"

 She laughed a bit at first, but the realized I was serious and tells me to go to the hospital.  I call Andy and ask him to come and get me

 "Now?" 

"Yes now! What are you doing that’s more important?!"

 He came to get me and in just a few minutes we were at the birthing center.  I told one of the nurses that my water broke and I am only 31 weeks along.  She asked if I was sure. Yeah. Pretty sure. She wanted to know if I had a sample of it she could smell. Umm...gross.  I guess that’s how they can tell if it’s amniotic fluid or just urine.  After a mildly disgusting undie sniff test (seriously, that's the part I can't let go of) they hooked me up to a bunch of machines that track the contractions and the baby’s heart rate. They waited only to discover my water had broken, but labor wasn't happening. I was having no contractions. I was only .5 cm dilated and had not progressed in two hours. It was like he had just popped the bubble and was sitting there.  They told me they had 24 hours to get the baby out before infections become and issue. However, they were going to have to prolong the labor as much as they could, because his lungs were not fully developed yet. They really needed to push the 24 hours mark as long as they could. They gave me an IV drug to start contractions.  Since the baby was so early, they gave me a steroid shot to help the baby’s lungs develop AND an IV antibiotic for infection because they didn’t get a chance to test for strep (something they test for at 37 weeks).  So about a dozen pokes and stabs later, the IV is in and the drugs are started.   My OB makes a short visit and informs me that she probably won't deliver the baby and it will be the OB on call. A total stranger.  She prescribes an Ambian to help me fall asleep. Thank God.

The next morning I wake up feeling no closer to delivering then I did the day before.  Nurses walked in and out all day, checking monitors and my vitals.  It was mostly boring day. I felt ridiculous even lying in bed when I felt fine. I got for a walk a few times, and they have already placed an incubator unit outside my door. I instantly hated it and felt like I had failed my son, and a machine was going to have to finish what I started. 
Dinner time came and I remember really looking forward to a chef salad with a chocolate shake (hello? still pregnant) The nurse brought in the food and said, "Sorry. The doctor ordered no more food, but the cafeteria already made it, so this is for your husband."  Andy got a really happy look on his face that was quickly wiped off from the look on mine. We had a laugh about it while he was eating it, but I'm sure he could feel the heat from my burning eyes.   Finally I start to feel contraction that are slightly painful.  About every 5 minutes I had to stop the conversations and do some deep breathing.  Each time my mom asks me "Are you having a contraction?"  Finally I snapped at her,

"If I’m breathing hard and I stop talking it’s PROBABLY a contraction!"  I feel bad about it now...

Okay so fast forward... they give me a drug to help take the edge off the contractions.  Turns out it takes the edge off everything, even what you are talking about.  I go slightly crazy and begin discussing how you never see Fozi bear anymore and how expensive chicken nuggets are.  The next thing I know, there is a nurse in the room giving me oxygen and I’m slipping in and out of consciousness. The cord had slipped around the baby's neck, but he had managed to free himself.  Whoa.
While I'm half spacing out on drugs and oxygen, the NICU doctor decides to introduce himself. I could only half understand what he was saying, but I remember thinking he seemed nice and he only said my baby would be small. Maybe 2 or 3 pounds. It wasn't until later I learned that he pulled my husband aside and said, "I don't think your wife understands how serious this is. The baby will not be breathing, there can be brain damage and infections, ruptured intestines... We can't know until the baby is born." My sweet husband decided that was information I didn't need to hear in my delusional state.

Now, when someone checks your cervix, it’s a real shock.  I’m sure that most of you do not know this but when a doctor checks your cervix to see how dilated you are they basically shove their entire hand up inside you. Imagine! a complete stranger fisting you! I know! You didn’t see that one coming! Very Very painful. And they check it every freaking hour! I swear! My birthing book really sugar coated that one. 

I kept nodding off and the extra oxygen is relaxing me, I think... hey, I can do this...  I fall asleep again...

At 12:30 in the morning I wake up in a ton of pain and some nurses starting to prep my room. Somehow they know it was time before I did.  The bed comes apart in pieces and no longer resembles a bed, but the scary stirrup seat that you are all aware of.  A giant lamp comes out of the ceiling and the Light of God is shining on your vagina.  At this point, I ask the nurse for an epidural. I’m ready for it and I’m in a ton of pain.  She tells me it’s too late.  I have to do it WITHOUT DRUGS.  Crap.  Now the pain is incredible. The worst pain I have ever felt in my life. I am crying, throwing up, and begging the doctors and nurses for anything... a Tylenol... something!  The doctors and nurses avoid my eye contact. I bet they have been in this situation before.

Because he was early, there were more people in my delivery room than normal. At one point, I believe I saw about ten people in the room, Andy being the only one that I recognized.  They tell me it’s time to start pushing. No. I don’t want to. It’s gonna hurt. But I started anyway.  TLC's "The Baby Story" did NOT get it right. I must have watched that show a hundred times and the mother's are always so ready and prepared and happy. But giving birth it the only time in your life when 10 strangers will watch you pee yourself, puke, crap yourself, scream bloody murder, and bleed all over everything.

I did a good job not yelling at Andy or saying anything like "You did this to me!" Instead, I just asked that he stop breathing on me.  It was 1:30 in the morning and his breath didn’t smell that great.
As far as what it looked like... sorry kids, I couldn’t tell you. I had my eyes shut almost the entire time.  At one point, the doctor told me that "He has hair!" 
"I don’t give a shit if he has hair right now." I imagined that I looked something like the girl in the exorcist movie.

36 hours of labor and 15 minutes of pushing later, out came a beautiful bundle of baby boy. They threw him on my chest long enough for me to say "Oh My God" before they whisked him away. Almost everyone (including my husband) left the room. Just the OB and a nurse stayed behind to stitch me up.  I had the foresight to request extra stitches if needed. I just barely recall the nurse joking with the OB and asking if she was "sewing a quilt".  I passed out from the pain.  Whirls of colors happened around me, and more pokes and pricks everywhere on my body. Information was given to me, but I’ll be damned if I can remember any of it. 

Someone woke me up two hours later and told me they needed to work out some of the blood in your uterus.  A nurse then begins beating you on the stomach and kneading you like bread dough... ALSO something that was not in my baby books. Then they make you pee.  I didn't want anything else coming out of there. No, I don't want to go!  I got up and stumbled to the bathroom, my center of gravity wasn't the same. She gave me some instructions on how to care for the tear that they stitched up. She then tells me that I have to eat and shower before I can go into the NICU. I realized that is the first time someone had mentioned him to me. No one even told me how much he weighed or what time he was born.  Andy came in to help me get ready for a shower. He doesn't say much about the baby, he gets teary eyed and says there are a lot of tube hooked up to him right now.  I let the hot water rush all over my body and I thought to myself... why the hell did I get pregnant? I am never doing that again. That was the worst experience of my entire life. I have never been in so much pain before.  I feel like I need to defend this statement. I was 7 months along when I went into labor. I was not ready. I was not at the point that I wanted him out. I hardly got to see the baby before they took him away. In my hormonal and irrational mind, I was still pregnant and there was no baby yet.


Showered, cleaned and fed, I am now allowed to see my baby.  I walk to the NICU and see this little guy with tubes taped everywhere. I start to cry a little. I feel like I failed him again and I instantly can’t believe how selfish I am.  In that instant, all of the pain I just went through feels like nothing, and totally worth it.  I am a mom. This little guy needs me more than anyone has ever needed me before.  I will be a mother for the rest of my life. Wow.


I finally see my original OB and NICU doctor again.  They have very happy news. My son was 5 pounds 6 ounces when he was born. His lungs were viable after 24 of ventilation, and while he had bad jaundice, that was all they could see.  Everything about my son was small but perfect. My OB joked that it was a small blessing he was early, because he probably would have been a 13 pound baby by my due date!!!  I had already been in the hospital 3 days. I had to stay 2 more days per state mandated standards, and Logan needed to stay yet another week.  I turned to my husband and asked, "So... ready to go paint that baby room?"