Labor Day!

     While everything is still kind of fresh in my mind, I want to document my labor journey. I started off by a tale-tell sign of being ready to go into labor: NESTING. I actually went to bed to bed on Tuesday night wanting to clean. I was excited to get up the next morning and get some cleaning done! Wednesday, I got up and swept, mopped, did laundry, and got everything set out for Thanksgiving dinner. I felt very accomplished! That very same night, around bedtime, I started having mild contractions. They hurt worse than the Braxton Hicks I had been having, and continued to get worse throughout the night. I didn't get much rest.
      At around 2:40 AM Thursday morning (my due date) I gave in and started timing them. They were getting pretty strong at that point. They were happening about every 5 to 7 minutes. Knowing that the hospital wouldn't keep me if they weren't in a better pattern, I continued to wait them out. That morning, my mother-in-law started cooking Thanksgiving dinner and I had decided that after I eat I was going to the hospital. At that point, I thought if these contractions hurt much worse than they were then, that I'd just DIE!! I was afraid of going to the hospital too late and not being able to get an epidural. Plus I had lost my mucus plug.
       During Thanksgiving dinner/lunch, I had contraction after contraction, so I stuck by my word and after lunch, we gathered all of our things and headed to the hospital. At this point it was about 2 PM. When we got there, they triaged me in and monitored the baby and my contractions and checked my cervix. I was only 1 1/2 CM! I was so bummed!!! But the nurse gave me an hour to change and nothing happened so I got discharged and headed back to the house.
      When I got home I went straight to the bed. I was tired from contracting all night and a little embarrassed for going to the hospital and getting sent home for the second time! (The first time was a blood pressure scare.) I laid in the bed until that evening (around 5 or 6 PM) when I finally decided to get up and walk. I was clearly in labor and everyone told me to wait and walk when I went into labor. So Dewayne and I got out of the house and walked around the neighborhood, even though it was drizzling and COLD!  We walked for about an hour or so and came back and I continued to have irregular contractions.
       When we finally laid down for bed, I had a contraction that I couldn't even stand to lay down for. It hurt so bad I had to move! Well when I got out of bed my water broke, but not a lot came out. I was hoping it would eventually break because I knew the hospital couldn't send me home. I told Dewayne and he did a ninja move and got out of bed and got my mother-in-law and my dad up and everyone got ready and headed to the hospital for the second time that same day. It was funny because right before bed my dad said "watch it happen right after everyone gets to bed."
        When we got to the hospital, we had to go through the ER entrance because it was after hours. We made our way to L&D and had to get triaged again. When I walked into the triage room, it was like the flood gate opened and water went everywhere! When the nurse finally checked me, I was 4 cm! YAY for progress!!! They finally got me into a L&D room and I was really starting to hurt. The nurse said she would start my IV and draw blood for the labs that would determine if I could get an epidural. 5 NEEDLE HOLES LATER she sent off for the lab work. It seemed to take forever and my contractions just continued to get harder and harder. I said repeatedly that I hadn't mentally prepared myself for the pain that I was having! It was HARD! It hurt so bad that I sent Dewayne out to see if the blood work had come back. The nurse checked me and I was already 6 cm! Finally, the guy, Paul, came in to give me my epidural. I was really nervous about moving but he made me feel better about it. He told me that it couldn't actually paralyze me (which is what I was afraid of!) They sat me up and gave me the instructions to have bad posture and hold my head down. He gave me a few sticks to numb the area and then started the actual epidural. It was the craziest feeling! I could feel the thing going into my back! It didn't hurt terribly but it didn't feel like butterflies either! I could feel that it settled on my right side. Dewayne stood in front of me the whole time and laid his head down with mine. Once he was done he taped me up really good and I almost immediately felt better. Once that was done, I wanted to make sure that everyone, esp my dad, knew I wasn't in pain anymore. It almost made him sick to see me like that. After everyone knew, me and Dewayne laid down to get some rest.
       When I woke up after about 3 or 4 hours or so, I was having some pain in my left side. Not terrible, but I could tell some of the medicine had shifted out of that side. I was extra numb on my right side and the feeling was slowly starting to come back to my left side. I told the nurse, Shannon (who was an Alabama Fan,) about it and she had the anesthesiologist to come and check it out.  This time is was a younger guy. He gave me a boost of Lidocain (sp?) to help take some of the pain away (which by the time he came in there was alot.) He didn't want to give me too much because he thought I wouldn't be able to feel enough to push. Well the Lidocain didn't help at all really. So I sat there feeling every contraction in my left side. The nurse finally checked me again and said I was complete on one side but I       still had a little cervix on the other side. It was because Jake was balled up on my left side (the one I could feel!) You could see how he was laying only on one side. Well, they waited for a little while and then they said that I could try pushing. The nurse gave me the instructions on what to do and then we were off!! I had Dewayne holding one leg and Marilyn holding the other. We sat there waiting on a contraction to come. When I felt one coming on I pulled my legs to me, curled around my stomach, and pushed until I thought my eyes were going to bulge out. There is no doubt that it feels like going to the bathroom. My contractions were so strong but pushing actually made them feel a little better. I would normally do about 3 good 10 sec pushes with each contraction. I pushed for probably close to an hour. He wasn't moving very much at all even though I was giving it everything I had, so Marilyn actually pulled Jake from my left side to the center and held him there as I pushed! When she did that, I could feel a difference in my pushes and they were actually moving him down way faster. After I pushed each time and let my breath out, I was in so much pain. I think I told Dewayne several times that I wasn't going to be able to do this! At that point I didn't care how he came out, I just wanted him OUT! Dewayne and Marilyn were very encouraging! Without them 2, I would have never been able to do it. When he finally started moving down, the nurse went and got the Doctor. I was so excited because that meant I was really making progress and it was going to be over soon! When the Doctor came in, I think I pushed for about another twenty minutes or so and all of the sudden he said "He has some sort of skin tag on his head." I was terrified for him!!!! Me and Dewayne probably looked like we had seen a ghost. But I continued to push and then he said the magic words, "His head will be out with the next push!" THANK YOU LORD! So I gave it EVERYTHING on the next push, and his head was out! They cleaned everything out of his mouth and nose and removed the cord that was wrapped around his neck. The doc then told me to give just a medium push, not too hard, and then he was out! They put him on my chest and the world came to a complete stop! He was here!!! Our baby boy!! Jake! Marilyn, Dewayne, and I were all blubbering messes! We were crying our eyes out!! All of us! He was greyish and all covered in mess, but he was the most beautiful thing I had ever laid my eyes on!! Thankfully he had only one skin tag and it was relatively small. They took him to the warmer to clean him up, and the doc delivered the placenta, gave me a few stitches, and it was done! Physically, I felt 100% better. What a relief it is after the placenta is out. I know thats gross to talk about, but my lord! It was like phew!!! They took Jake to the nursery because he had a fever that I had given him. Twenty minutes after he was delivered, I got up and walked to the restroom. That's how much that stupid epidural had worn off. Since they had taken Jake, the nurses in the nursery took a couple pictures and printed them off for me. And shortly after that I walked to the postpartum room.
       After we got there it wasn't very long before they brought my little bundle of joy in there. I've been in love ever since! What an amazing feeling!! I wouldn't trade any of my experience in for a million dollars!! The pain was totally worth it! I just really hope with my next kid, my epidural works!


**This was written with my very cloudy memory of how things went! I've learned that when you are in pain you really don't stop and think about recording every single little moment. BOO! But as things come to me I'll update this.