December 3rd: My due date. I'm still pregnant. Here I thought I would either have my sweet boy by now or be remotely close to having him. I spent the day in Pima at Bradford's first wrestling tournament of the year. I waddled my way up and down the bleachers and cheered and jumped trying to send myself into labor. That didn't work.
December 7th: I am still pregnant. My last appointment with my Dr. I am still measuring 2cm dilated and about 50% effaced. I have been measuring that for the last 4 weeks. He strips my membranes and we talk options. At this point I am the size of a house. I'm not having any contractions, I'm just uncomfortable. I have been off work since Thanksgiving and I was hoping not to spend half of my maternity leave still pregnant. I am not opposed to being induced but I have heard horror stories of unbelievable labor pains and labor never really starting and ultimately leading to having a C-section. But I'm selfish and want this baby to come now so I make an induction appointment for Friday, December 9th at 7am.
December 8th: I am feeling good. A little more uncomfortable than usual but not having any contractions or pain. I am assuming this is my last full day of being pregnant so I enjoy the day with my friend Rhianna. We go to lunch and do a little shopping at Walmart to pick myself up a nursing bra. She is due with her first baby in January and so we have some things in common to complain and chat about. That night my mom comes into town. She has been on high alert since Thanksgiving waiting for the baby. After my mom gets here we head to get some dinner. I figure it's going to be my last meal for a while until I deliver so I eat WAY more than I probably should. That night we talk and about midnight head to bed ready to get up and get going in the morning to meet my little boy.
December 9th: I wake up at 3:00 to some stomach pain and some not so pleasant GI symptoms,I sit down for a bit and realize that my stomach ache is a little too similar to a contraction pattern so I grab my phone and start timing. After about an hour of contractions happening for about 30-40 seconds and 2-3 minutes apart I wakes Bradford up and tell him the long awaited words of "IT'S TIME!" I wakes my mom up and we load up and head to the hospital. “People tell you how contractions are the most painful thing you will ever experience” and I'm not going to disagree. “You endure the pain waiting for those 2 minutes of rest before you are consumed by pain again”. We get to the hospital about 5am and get hooked up to the monitors, IV started, and cervix checked. I am 5cm and 100% effaced. At that point I am ready for some pain relief, I got some IV Fentanyl to control my pain until the CRNA gets there to start an epidural. The Fentanyl makes me feel like what I assume it would feel like to be high. It took the edge off and made it more bearable. After about an hour the Fentanyl wore off and I was ready for an epidural. Just about the time I felt like I could strangle my nurse if she asked me to rate my pain one more time, in walks the man of my dreams, the CRNA. They get the epidural in and it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. “I could have kissed that man once he had placed the epidural.”
After I get the epidural we notice my heart rate and my blood pressure start to steadily increase and that's when I get thrown to my left side and the always fashionable oxygen mask thrown on. The CRNA comes back in to check to see how I'm feeling and gives me some medication to lower my heart rate and blood pressure. Shortly after the medication is admisistered they hit the toilet and I am feeling nauseous and dizzy but that's normal. After a while her blood pressure stabilized a bit but my heart rate is still running anywhere from 120 to 170. Any time it climbed over 140 I got nauseous and would toss my cookies. This is about the time I regretted having eaten the large lunch and dinner the day before. This only happened twice thankfully but I could have went without.
I go about the day lying on one side or the other. My nurse was nice and a little frazzled. That night and the day I arrived it was like a revolving door in the OB and they were super busy so I didn't see my nurse much. I probably saw the CRNA more than my nurse. When she was there she was always nice to me but if the Dr. was in the room with her it was tense. I don't think she much cared for him and he for her so if they crossed paths they bickered over what to do about my blood pressure or what Pitocin dosage they should start because my contractions had slowed down a bit. So I could only handle either her Dr. or her nurse at one time.
My Dr. is usually pretty straight forward but it seemed that when something could have been wrong he kind of got quiet. Example 1: Babies heart rate has some slight decelerations with my contractions so nurse notifies Dr. of such. Dr. mumbles something under his breath to the effect of, babies cord might be around his neck. Being in the hyper-aware state I am in yell down through my mask "WHAT!?!?!" Dr. states, "If the cord's around his neck there's nothing I can do now. I haven't had a baby take the cord off from around their own neck yet." I'm a little frustrated but not totally irritated yet. Example 2: Dr. comes to break her water about 1pm. Water gets broken and I hear another mumble come from between my legs. Asking what the deal is and I hear, "just a little meconium, no big deal." NO BIG DEAL!?!?!?! In my mind I'm thinking, Ok, my baby is overdue, so I can understand that there is meconium in the fluid but I know that my baby is still in there breathing this stuff in. After he broke my water he checked me and I was 8cm dilated and still 100% effaced. So after this lovely experience I have to call my nurse about an hour after my water breaks to get cleaned up.
The monitors they had on mybelly weren't tracking the baby's heart rate of my contractions very well so the Dr. placed a scalp electrode in the baby’s head to get a better reading on his heart rate. I felt like a science experiment, I had tubes coming from everywhere. My oxygen mask, pulse ox, blood pressure cuff, baby monitor, contraction monitor, an IV, catheter, epidural line, and the little scalp electrode.
Around 2:30 my nurse comes in and checks me and I'm fully dilated! When they tell me it's time to push I'm taken aback a little and I'm not sure if I want to push. I went through the whole pregnancy knowing I was going to have a baby, knowing that there would come a point that I wouldn't be pregnant anymore and I would have something living and breathing depending on me to survive Bradford grabs one leg and my mom grabs another and we're off I beg the Dr. not to turn the epidural off and I start pushing. The little guy was face down and had his chin tucked down to his chest so they used the vacuum to help pull his head up a bit so pushing him out would be easier. One push, I started feeling the pressure and was hoping I was doing it right. Second push, right about the time I started to push her Dr. started to pull on the vacuum and the nurse hadn't applied any suction so there went the suction cup and another "bicker" between her nurse and Dr.
About the time the Dr. said he wanted to give my an episiotomy I felt a big burn and saw a squirt hit the Dr., my mom and Bradford, My mom let go of my leg and started gagging. When she let go of my leg I kicked the Dr. and realized everyone around me had brownish stuff on them. Then I realized once the little guy's head popped out, so did all the fluid built up behind it and like a squirt gun it shot everyone around me. Just like that, there he was, in all his naked glory. They set him up on my stomach and there was no going back. I, being in the emotionally unstable un-pregnant girl, started crying and trying to get the little guy to cry by rubbing him. He was taken over to the warmer and suctioned a bit because he had swallowed a little bit of meconium fluid. About that time he started crying and my epidural had worn off enough just in time for my Dr. to put some stitches where the sun don't shine. I had torn a bit and had to get a couple of stitches. At 2:59 on December 9th, 2011 we finally got to meet our sweet little Owen Bradford. He came out weighing a whopping 9lbs 4oz and was 21.5 inches long. I think I was in complete shock after the nurse handed hime to me all wrapped up because I just couldn't believe I had him, finally, in my arms. It made all the months of trying totally worth it. Made all the tears and feelings of loss totally worth it. We had a baby. Our own baby. He was perfect in every way and he was ours.
We went from this...
To this...
Our little guy at 1 week old...
"O-DOG" as we call him, is getting so big and amazes me everyday. He has been focusing on faces, cooing and talking, and smiling since he was about 3 weeks old. Now he is 9 weeks old and big as ever. Our appointment today for his 2 month check-up he was 15lbs 1oz and 23 inches long. He is a big guy and we love every inch of him. When he was born it was like staring at a little Bradford with his momma's big ears. He still is a little Bradford and by the looks of him he is going to be a stout little guy. Between Bradford's school and me starting to head back to work we can't get enough of him. I am grateful to have Bradford be so supportive and basically calling on my every whim and need. I need to upload the rest of my photos and get them on my next blog post. Until then, much love!
