Sarah's Birth Story: Part two

I was in la la land for the most part now but I wasn't sure if it was the drugs or the fact that I was delirious with happiness that I wasn't in pain anymore. Then the happiness started to feel like nausea, and I couldn't believe that I was going to throw up... I yelled over everyone talking that I needed a trash can and to be propped up NOW because I was going to throw up, what, I didn't know I was going on almost 36 hours of not eating but throw up I did. Dr. Asshole was still in the room and he said "Oh that is totally normal." Is it really?! A little warning next time would be nice... anyway now that I was feeling no pain I was able to sleep and did from about 12:30 in the morning until it was time to push.  They came in periodically and would update me on my progress which was still slow. Then sometime in the 4 o'clock hour the resident came in to check me and I was prepared to hear the worst... like being only 4cm but low and behold I was at a 7! I didn't realize how much my body had been fighting my labor but in that moment all residual feelings I had of "wussing" out for getting an epidural vanished. I tried to fall back asleep but when the doctor said I was at a 7 the air around me became charged with excitement with a side of nervousness.

After being told that I was actually progressing I start to feel....something. A new sensation, like I need to push something out, I have a lot going on down there at this point what with the catheter and the fetal heart monitor wire. Baby girl was terrible at staying on the monitor, we called her camera shy to try to laugh about it but in reality it was annoying as hell. I couldn't move around like I wanted to because it would send the nurse flying in to my room thinking something was wrong, they decided because I was so close and she was being a brat about it to use the FHM. Anyway, back to my sensation. I told my husband and my mom that I was feeling something down there. It wasn't a contraction it was something new, I told them the feeling or pressure was coming from where the FHM wire was but I just felt like I wanted to push out the catheter. I think the catheter thing was because I could feel that better than the wire, but I told them I think I am getting close to pushing.

Husband went and grabbed the nurse and she came in hesitently. She had been with me through most of my labor, or at least the hard stuff, and she knew it had taken FOREVER to get to this point and I could see it on her face when I asked to be checked so soon after her last exam that she didn't want to get my hopes up. She gloved up and the look of surprise on her face let me know what I was suspecting. She said that I was fully dilated and it was time to start pushing. I thought I hadn't heard her correctly, me ready to push? But this has been what seems like the longest labor in the history of labor and you're telling me we are almost to the end? I didn't believe her, then she started to get the cart ready and turned the light on to the warming bed. At 6am she said I could try some practice pushing, and in this part of my story I am going to admit to my naivety. I thought to myself that their will be no practice pushes I told myself I would have this kid out in 3 pushes....

Oh silly, dumb Mrs. G...

I start my practice pushes and realize that I have no idea how to push this kid out, they say I am doing a good job but after about 30 minutes and no baby I realize... wow, this is hard. The nurse checks me to see where I am and she says that I still have a lip of my cervix and I need to lay on my left hand side to get it to go away. At this point they have turned off my epi so I can start to feel the contractions to push. I feel everything and through all the new sensations I had the pleasure of feeling during my labor this was the worst. The was the beginning of me begging for a c-section or what I like to call.... Transition.

I was on my left hand side and was begging for this kid to be out of me. I believe I asked for a scalpel so I could do it myself when I was told we were past that point. I finally laid back on my back and refused to lay on my left hand side. My dear husband said to me "but, honey the nurse said..." and I very "nicely" told him to Shut the eff up, I wasn't laying on my left hand side and the nurse could get over it.

What little time I was on my left hand side must have done the trick because she came back in and I resumed "practice" pushing.  After about another 30 min their was a shift change and I got my new nurse, who thought the best way to make a first impression was to fiddle with my nethers while I was having a contraction.

"GET YOUR FINGERS OUT OF ME."

The voice that came out of me was not my own, but came from a place, deep inside me that I guess only shows itself when in extreme pain. The nurse very promptly brought her hands up in the "I surrender" position and said "OK"... like I actually had a loaded gun pointed at her, which if I you think about it I kind of did (ba-doom tiiiiish). After the contraction ended I profusley apologized to her for yelling at her and she said "Please, yell at me if you need too." It is hard to remember that there is nothing you can do or say to L & D nurse that 1. they haven't heard before or 2. they take to heart.

So there I am, pushing and pushing and pushing and nothing is happening. I say that I know I said I was against foreceps and a vacuum but if they brought me a dyson I would have sucked her out myself.  That was about the last witty thing I said because in an instant shit got real. I kept pushing and everyone kept telling me that I was doing such a great job but to me nothing was happening, I had been pushing for an hour and half and still didn't have a baby. I told my mom and husband to "SHUT UP"  when they kept saying how awesome I was doing. The next push I gave I felt the room begin to spin and I yelled " I AM GOING TO PASS OUT, I AM SO HOT, I AM GOING TO PASS OUT" They thought I was over exaggerating but after the next contraction I hit my mother's and husband's hands off of me, ripped off my blood pressure cuff and started to literally rip off my gown almost pulling my IVs out in the process. My mom and husband helped me out of my gown and I hear a little voice from my left hand side say "Hi can we get a fan to room 676?"

It was one of those super fancy dyson ones, and let me tell you, those things pump out some serious arctic air. The issue was my mom who was holding my leg kept standing in front of it and my husband and I kept yelling at her to move because the instant the cool wasn't hitting me I felt like I was going to pass out again.

The doctor finally comes in and checks my progress you can see about a dime size portion of her head when I bear down and push. The doctor checks me and I ask if I can change position and she tells me that Sarah is lodged in my pelvis and if we weren't careful what position I was in it could lodge her further in. I don't fight this because at this point I have the shakes and in between contractions I am begging anyone who will listen to get this baby out of me because I just can't anymore. I was convinced that I had nothing else to give and that I was done pushing and that this next contraction I wasn't going to push I was just going to stay pregnant forever. Yeah right, that's laughable. If you hear a woman say that when there is that urge to push you push, I didn't even want to push but damn it I had no control over my body. So I pushed and the doctor realized that I wasn't doing an awesome job the way I was doing it so she said we were going to get medieval. I think "great they are going to have me bite down on a leather strap or something." Not the case, the nurse comes back with a towel that she has twisted to look like a rope and tells me to grab the other end. I am told to pull as hard as I can when I have a contraction and the nurse would pull back (think playing tug of war). The issue was I wasn't rounding in enough on my self to push her out. Does that make sense? There is a reason why you are slightly sitting up with your legs in stirrups, its because it puts all the pressure right in your groin area and I wasn't in the right position.

The contraction came and I pulled with all my might and everyone shouted how awesome I was doing and that they could actually see the head. The doctor asked if I wanted to mirror as motivation but I said no because I was afraid I was going to be to focused on what I was seeing and not on actually pushing. My husband who swore up and down that he wasn't going to watch was transfixed and couldn't look away. Another contraction came I pulled but my arms gave out and I shouted at someone to catch the poor nurse on the other end. When the contractions would end my whole body would be shaking uncontrollably,so getting a grip on the towel was hard. The next few contractions I was determined to get this kid out, I had been in labor long enough and was convinced that if I had to push for much longer I would actually go insane. So after the obligatory 2 hard pushes while counting to 10 I realized I still felt the urge to push so I yelled " CAN I KEEP PUSHING." The doctor responded calmly "If you feel like you need too" it was those extra pushes that got her out. I had 2 or 3 contractions where I did the extra push and after every contraction you could see more and more of her.

Once she was finally crowning I felt the contraction coming and with everything I had left I pushed and that was it. The whole room exploded and shouting about how she was out and what was I doing? Still pushing... She came at the very beginning of the contraction and my body was still telling me to push,  I was told to stop pushing she was out, and I gave a "huh?" then they placed her on my chest and there she was, my daughter was here.

Husband cried and kept telling me "you did it, she's here" and my mom was just a mess. I was silent, my body was humming but when they put her tiny, warm body in to my arms, they stopped shaking and were powerful and steady. The weight of her on me felt like it was meant to be there, like this little plot of skin was always hers to lay on and it had just been waiting. She was born with her eyes open and when I began to talk she searched her small little eyes for me. She knew me and I knew her, I knew all 5lbs 8oz of her ( I guessed her weight spot on, I guess mother knows best.) They whisked her away to make sure she was ok and I delivered my placenta. This was such a weird sensation, and thankfully it was intact and their wasn't any visible problem with it.  We told the doctor that I wanted to encapslate it but she said that because she was so early they were going to want to do some tests to make sure there wasn't an infection or something along those lines as the cause for her early arrival. I didn't care, I was tired and high on my baby. They said she was perfect just petite and that she could go to the normal nursery and not the NICU which was huge relief for me. Her glucose was really low so while they took her to the nursery husband went with her and I stayed behind to get stitched up. I actually stayed in the L&D room for a few hours because they had to run some tests on me. I guess my blood pressure sky rocketed during delivery...hmmmm wonder why? But they took my cath out and took some blood. Everything turned out ok in the end and I was finally taken upstairs.

The first few days were filled with Sarah having to be on a billi bed because she was jaundice, being told I may not be able to breastfeed and that I was this close to getting a c-section.

All and all this was a huge lesson for me in letting go of control and just going with the flow. I am so happy that she is here, happy and healthy and that I made it out not to emotionally scared to consider having more children.