Warning, this is a little long - but hey, it was the best day of our lives!
I went into labor the evening of September 12th around 9pm...we knew that the hardest part was ahead of us, so we decided to try and get as much sleep as we could. Unfortunately, I was too excited and nervous and couldn't sleep so I let Aaron get some rest while I took what felt like a 6 hour bath to try and make my back pain go away...it didn't, but hey at least I tried.
When I woke Aaron up in the morning...around 6am, I let him know my contractions were getting closer together and we needed to make sure our house was ready for our new little man. I did my last minute nesting between contractions and Aaron baked a couple dozen muffins for our soon-to-be nursing staff in hopes they would follow our birthing plan and we would get special treatment ;) Hey, I've worked in many hospitals and I know how to get the staff in a good mood...food.
All of our bags were packed and our midwife knew we were going to be heading to the hospital soon and now I just sat and waited for my contractions to pick up. My goal was to wait until they were only about 4 minutes apart and lasting at least a minute for a full hour. We reached that and thought we should go...little did I know how intense the contractions would get at this point. I remember one of our birthing teachers saying that contractions aren't painful, they are uncomfortable - LIAR! My back pain was incredibly intense and the only position that seemed bearable during the contractions was in our rocking chair...so getting to the car and to the hospital just seemed daunting. However, I was able to waddle very quickly between contractions and somehow made it out to the car, to the hospital and into a wheel chair to go to the labor deck.
Of course this would happen. We get into our triage room and are waiting for my midwife to arrive to check me out and hear another pregnant lady screaming in the hallway, she then is rushed past our room into the room next door...at that point there is A LOT of screaming and swearing and finally a baby's cry. That was not helpful. Her screaming was THE WORSE thing I have heard...like someone was cutting off her arm and now I'm thinking maybe we should press the pause button and reevaluate...too late.
Jessica, our midwife gave us the okay - we were 4 cm! Our labor room was magnificent - 2 bathrooms, a whole wall of windows, many different sized laboring balls, rocking chairs - everything...time to get the show on the road. Turns out my little man was sunny-side-up and I needed to try to do everything I could to rotate him...this was the reason for my awful back pain. Luckily, we had worked on this in class and I got to doing my exercises and rolling on the floor to try to turn him. We labored all day and all night...if it weren't for Aaron and Jessica I don't know how I would have survived. Jessica kept the room nice and dark with a few candles, some relaxing music and kept orange scented cool towels close by to cool me down. Oh and did I mention she kept running a warm lavender bath for me to birth in...seriously, BEST MIDWIFE EVER! Aaron was incredible! For just about EVERY contraction he was with me and encouraging me and letting me squeeze his hands as hard as I could to counter the back pressure.
Sadly, around 7cm my contractions puttered out. They were no longer consistently getting stronger and closer together - after a long discussion we decided to go ahead and start a petocin drip - keep in mind I have been in labor about 24 hours now and have not had any sleep for about the last 40 hours. However...we decided to go ahead and try to make it without any pain medication. Contractions are intense...but petocin contractions are evil. My body was somehow able to let me sleep between the contractions - Aaron found it absolutely mind boggling that I would be able to sleep for 45 seconds, wake up to endure another contraction and go back to sleep. It is incredible how your body is able to gather up as much energy as it can, no matter how crazy it may seem.
At about 12:30am I start to feel the need to push...FINALLY! I had been waiting for this for so long that I just decided to go for it. I had been warned that pushing can take up to four hours and to just be patient and stick with it...however, I couldn't wait that long, I wanted to meet my little man. I pushed my little man out as fast as I could...30 minutes later, my little man was in my arms - simply perfect.
We did have one little hiccup - remember when I said most of my labor was back labor...well, I was successful in being able to turn him around. That said, he didn't want to be turned around so while I was pushing he decided to do a 180 and ended up doing a lot of damage. My midwife thought she would be able to fix everything, but unfortunately I was losing quite a bit of blood and surgery had to be called in. Now keep in mind, my parents are still out in the waiting room, they know that Mason has arrived (thanks to my great nurse Nadine) however, they are now seeing nursing staff and a medical team running to my birthing room. My mom who already is a worrier is not doing well (I find this out later) - thank goodness Nadine remembered to go out and let her know what was going on. Sadly, after the surgeons had evaluated the situation they decided to take me back to the operating room. About 3 hours later and very drowsy I was back to my guys. In my delirious state I wanted to know how many stitches I had received and unfortunately there wasn't an exact number...I think the exact quote was "Too many to count, hundreds..." - well, that wasn't the answer I was expecting. Nor did I realize how much pain I would be soon be in. Needless to say, I was very weak because of the blood loss and extremely sore due to the sutures. I couldn't walk by myself and anything that required me to get out of my hospital bed was extremely painful. Luckily, my little Mason was content with just some cuddling and nursing...oh and since I couldn't really move this meant Daddy was on diaper duty :)
My midwife tried to convince us to stay another night to recoup from the surgery...but we really felt ready to head home and enjoy every second with Mason. Home sweet home.
This is the same outfit I came home from the hospital in!
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