Birth Story: Avery Margaret Part Two

So this was it.  I was really going to have a baby.  I felt relief that we weren't going home this time without Avery and also less embarrassed for coming into the hospital with such pathetic contractions.  Oh and what's more: I didn't pee my pants earlier in the day!  My water had totally broke.  And it didn't break all over the front seat of the car like Kyle had feared.

What they figured is that I had a small, high tear in the bag of fluids and that's why I only had a little water that leaked.  I would find out later what it was really like to have your water break.

We began to settle into our hosptial suite and the nurses hooked me up to all sorts of IV's and monitors.  Because of having gestational diabetes, they checked my blood sugar and they would continue to check it every hour the rest of the night.  The first check came back pretty high.  Remember that Cherry Coke I decided I could have earlier?  It came back to haunt me.  I was restricted to eating only ice chips and the nurse threatened to give me insulin if my blood sugar did not come down within the hour.  It did.  I was given a low dose of Pitocin and waited for the contractions to intensify.

Kyle found ESPN and my parents napped in their car for a few hours while I watched the monitor for every contraction.  Hours went by and I was only dilated to a 4.  It was a little depressing.  The pain was getting stronger and I was surprised when the nurse offered me pain medication not in the form of an epidural.  I did not know this was even an option!  I went for the pain meds (call me a conformist) and was able to doze off and on through most of the contractions during the night. 

Eventually I was told that I probably wouldn't progress too much until the rest of my water broke.  The plan was to let me labor for awhile longer on my own and when the doctor came in, he could break my water and get things going a lot faster.  I was also told that the anesthesiologist had a C-section to do at 7 AM so if I wanted an epidural, I either had to get it before 6:30 AM or I had to wait until after the C-section.

I did not want to risk missing the anesthesiologist so I requested the epidural at 6 AM.  It was no big deal, but also I was still on some pain meds so that probably helped some.  There was a slight shock in my right hip and I soon felt the pain from the contrations subside.  Only there was one problem: I could still feel them on my left side.  I started to panic, worried that the epidural wasn't placed right and he'd have to do it again.  Every 15 minutes I was allowed to push my button for more medicine in the epidural and I pushed that button religiously until I no longer felt the pain in my left side.

The epidural was great.  The nurse was able to turn up the pitocin to speed things up a bit and I started dilating more.  Avery was turned slightly face up however, so I had pretty intense lower back pain even with the epidural.  I didn't mind this too much though because I kind of felt like since I was in labor I should feel some pain.  Like it was cheating to be totally painless maybe?  At any rate, I was able to tell when the contractions came because the pressure on my tailbone would get really intense. 

Despite the pain, I was able to get some decent sleep (and so was everyone else) in preparation for what was ahead.

A couple hours after the epidural, I felt something that I worried was the baby coming out.  Turns out, it was my water breaking.  It broke.  And it broke.  And it broke.  Whenever I thought it was over, it just kept coming!

 Not long after my water completely broke, the pain in my tailbone became nearly unbearable.  I couldn't believe I was feeling that much pain even with the epidural and was so grateful to not be feeling the full force of labor at that point.  The nurse checked me out and I was finally a 10.  A 10!  A perfect 10!  I felt so proud of myself as if I had willed myself to reach a 10.  But really, my body did it all on it's own.  (And with a little help of some Pitocin)

It's very surreal to realize that your body is doing exactly what it should be doing and you have absolutely no control over it.  No matter how ready I felt, I could not stop or start labor at any point.  I had no control over the situation and yet my body still knew just what to do.

The delivery room quickly transformed as parts of my bed broke away and lights were lowered.  The doctor came in and chatted with Kyle about Boise State.  Kyle was wearing a BSU shirt, of course, and the doctor had just come from another delivery room where the dad was a BSU fan.  Thinking about that now, I think I should have been a little annoyed maybe?  But I had an epidural and I was relaxed and happy.  I felt a calm confidence that everything was right.

The doctor said it'd probably take me 45 minutes to 2 hours of pushing and he'd be back when "it was time."