Push!!

I thought I would start off by telling you the story of my pregnancy and labor/delivery.

I'm 36 weeks in this picture:

I was almost 8 weeks along before I found out I was pregnant. I conceived in late October, and shortly after Thanksgiving I was struck with the flu. Or so I thought. Kinda hard to call it the flu when you don't really have the chills or a fever. Turns out it was the beginning of Morning Sickness, and little did I know that the glorious side effect of pregnancy would stay with me for much longer than I could appreciate. In early December, it dawned on me that I might be pregnant. So I bought a double-pack pregnancy test and headed to one of my best friends' place for the evening. We had plans to go line-dancing that night, and I finally talked myself into taking one of the tests shortly before we left. I went into the bathroom, did my business, and took the stick out to sit it on the counter and start the timer, all the while refusing to look at it. After what seemed like a lifetime, the timer went off. I couldn't bring myself to look at the results, so I had my friend look for me. What I heard next was "Do two lines mean you're pregnant? Because there are definitely two lines." My response to that? "Give me those instructions!!" I frantically spent the next 5 minutes double and triple checking the directions for reading results, as well as searching for a clause that may have been hidden in the Spanish instructions (true story!). After being laughed at by my friend, I was forced to swallow the information and accept it. I proceeded to call my best friend to tell her the news, and then we headed out for our night of line dancing. The second we turned the car on, "My Little Girl" by Tim McGraw came on the radio. At that moment, I somehow knew that a) I would be having a little girl, and b) that everything would be okay in the end.

Emotionally, the course of my pregnancy was rough wherever Claire's father was concerned. It took him the entire nine months to finally accept the turn of events. As far as hormones go, my emotions were okay, except for a point a little more than half way through where I cried at the drop of a hat. I remember witnessing someone being yelled at by someone else, and I was the one who cried!

All other aspects of my pregnancy were interesting to say the least. My morning sickness started extremely early (about 4 weeks) and lasted until the end of my fourth month. And let me tell you, it is far from limited to morning, as its name implies. I was sick at every point in time throughout the day and I considered myself lucky if I made it through an entire 24 hour period without vomiting. Even saltine crackers made me sick! I pretty much lived on bland Cheerios, toast, and cooked white rice. And Jolly Ranchers- those things were a lifesaver (my nurse practitioner suggested them to curb the nauseating feeling and they worked like a charm)! The biggest thing that bothered me were the smells of different foods, especially fish. To this day a strong fishy odor turns my stomach just a little. My severe morning sickness caused a 22 pound weight LOSS over the course of the first four months of my pregnancy, which was a little troubling since the whole goal of pregnancy is to actually put ON a little weight to nourish the baby. However, my doctor recognized that it was a fairly normal thing to have happen, and after those first four months, my nausea went away and my appetite started improving again. I went through craving phases.... anything cheesy or cheese flavored, chocolate, ice cream, and toward the end since I was due in July, I craved a lot of fresh fruit. I wound up making up for those 22 pounds that I initially lost, and even gained about 12 more.

My due date was July 16th, 2007. On Monday, July 2nd, I went in for my weekly check up. I saw the nurse practitioner that day and although I was barely dilated to 2cm, her opinion was that I would be lucky to deliver by my due date. The evening of the 3rd, I went to fireworks for the holiday, which really got the baby moving! On the 4th of July, I woke up feeling extremely too pregnant, and felt like I was carrying the baby lower. My mom and I had plans that day to go shopping, since there were still a few things I needed to complete the baby's nursery collection and to be able to pack my bags for the hospital. Leaving breakfast that morning, my mom stopped me in the parking lot, looked at my belly and said "Oh boy, we better get a move on today- you're really low!" After a few hours of shopping, we came home to finish putting together the baby's bed, put away all of her clean clothes, and I packed a bag for myself and the baby for the hospital. Now I was all ready.

The following morning (the 5th), I woke up at 7am, just as my mom was getting ready to leave for work. I said goodbye and headed for the bathroom to go pee- a frequent occurrence late in pregnancy! I was still kind of groggy from just waking up, so I sat there for a minute..... thought I was done. Nope. Sit back down. Pee some more. Done this time. Hmm, guess not. Better sit back down. Then I started thinking "Wait a minute... I don't feel any bladder pressure. And I can't really stop the flow. Did my water break?!" So what do I do? I texted my friend who is a nurse. The text I got back? "CALL YOUR DOCTOR!!" Ohhhhh yeah, I guess I should! All the while remaining on the toilet, I called the doctor on call for the practice. Roughly 15 minutes later she called back and after I told her what was happening, she said she wanted me to go to the hospital to get checked out.

My mom works about 45-50 minutes away, and by the time I called her to tell her that she needed to turn around to take me to the hospital, she was almost to work. I waited. On the toilet. Then I decided I didn't want to go to the hospital in my pajamas, without a bra, with morning breath and crazy bed head. So I got up, put on about 3 feminine pads, and got to work. Despite walking around the house with a football between my legs, I was dressed and ready to go by the time my mom got back to the house. Walking through the kitchen to go out to the car, I thought to myself "Gosh, I should probably eat some breakfast," because I knew that once I was officially in labor they wouldn't let me have anything to eat, but quickly thought maybe this was just a false alarm and I would be able to eat later when they sent me home. From that thought in the kitchen, I don't remember anything else until we got to the hospital. They wheeled me in and got me set up in a triage room. The nurse came in and didn't even have to check me, she knew by looking around "down there" that I was in labor. "Ok, let's get her upstairs and hooked up!" OH MY GOD. This was it. I was in labor!

After making several phone calls to Claire's dad, my dad, Claire's other set of grandparents, my grandparents, and my boss to tell her I wouldn't be in that day, they took me to my room. It was the usual-- IV, paperwork out the wazoo, changing into that oh-so-sexy hospital gown, and laying on a mountain of absorbent pads. By the time all of this got done, it was going on about 9am. I really hadn't felt any contractions up to this point, so they decided to start Pitocin, a medication that naturally mimics the hormone "oxytocin", which stimulates labor. Over the next few hours, my contractions gradually got stronger and I started to progress- slowly, that is. By early afternoon, it seems as though everyone and their brother had showed up in my room, on top of the numerous staff members. My parents, my grandparents, my aunt, Claire's dad, his parents, his brother, sister-in-law and nieces, and his best friend along with her parents and two little girls. By 4:00pm I was exhausted, starved, and in a whole lot of pain. The doctor came in to check me and I was FOUR CENTIMETERS dilated. That's all. After 7 hours. Four. By that point I all but begged for the epidural, which I had been dreading over the last 9 months even more than the labor. Despite the fact that Claire's dad and I actually weren't on speaking terms when I went into labor, he was there and found it in himself to step up, and actually I will always have to give him credit for being so strong and supportive while I was in labor. It turned out he was pretty much the only person I really didn't want out of my sight. So, when the anesthesiologist said that he had to leave the room for me to get the epidural, I started to break down a little. There I was, about to face the thing I was afraid of the most about this experience, and they were telling me that the one person that was my comfort couldn't hold my hand through it. A new nurse was coming on duty and pretty much told me to suck it up. At that point I didn't like her. Little did I know that she was an incredible OB nurse and she would get me through a lot over the next day. Anyway, I got my epidural, and let me tell those of you who haven't had one- they really aren't that bad! I could hardly feel it in comparison to the contractions. It was greaaaat!!

Visitors continued to come and go over the next couple of hours. I was so hungry that I kept watching the Food Network channel on TV, living vicariously through it. By 7pm I was dilated to 7cm, and 8cm by 8pm. Somewhere between the 4cm and 7cm, though, the baby's heart rate started dropping, so the nurses slapped some oxygen on me and flipped me into a weird and completely uncomfortable position to get her to move around to get optimal oxygen. A short while later, she was fine. But it was when I hit the 8cm that things started getting difficult. I hit the 8cm around 8pm, but then I started dilating unevenly-- something I had never even heard of or knew could happen! So, when they checked me again at 9:30/10pm, my left side was still at 8cm but my right side had progressed to 10. Apparently this was because the baby was moving down the canal crooked, causing uneven pressure on my cervix, thus resulting in uneven dilation. That made me have to flip into more uncomfortable positions to try to get her to move correctly. Apparently, unannounced to me, there was talk about a cesarian section and the nurses were getting ready to book an OR when the baby started behaving and I finally dilated evenly to 10cm, around 11:00. The doctor announced that I would start pushing soon while I was in the room alone, and my nerves went through the roof! Ohhhh did I mention that sometime right before reaching an even 10cm, my epidural wore off? Yup. I begged the nurses for more, but the doctor wouldn't let me have it because he wanted me to be able to feel where I was pushing. Crap.

So, I started pushing a little before 11:30pm.... and I pushed and pushed and pushed. By this time, exhaustion was not even close to describing how I felt. Me, Claire's dad, both of our moms, and my best friend were in the room, along with two doctors and two nurses. My mom got yelled at for reminding me to breathe and my best friend got yelled at for saying "boy, you must be exhausted" following a difficult push. Gee, you think?! Had I been able to get out of that bed, I probably would have slapped her. About half-way through, I completely stopped listening to my nurse and the doctor. Claire's dad pretty much took over in his Army Bootcamp mentality, and he pretty much ordered me to push her out when I was ready to give up.

Good thing I listened to him.... because at 1:28am on Friday, July 6th, 2007, Claire Noel was born. She weighed in at 6 pounds 6 ounces and was 19 inches long.... and she was perfect. See for yourself...

Please feel free to share your pregnancy/labor stories!