The Best of 2014: Part 2

The car ride to the hospital wasn't easy, but my husband was a champ and helped me breathe through the contractions and did his best to avoid all the potholes. I had this moment of realization on the ride, a moment a lot of moms talk about. It's this kind of surreal feeling, being pregnant, and you can't imagine how your life will change but then there's this moment when you know that you will never be the same. In the car, I started crying as I realized that on this drive in the opposite direction, we would be a family of three.

We arrived at the hospital a little before 5am and went to triage. The Thursday prior I had been 2-3cm dilated and 100% effaced at my midwife appointment. I knew that they wanted me to be 4cm before they admitted me, so I was crossing my fingers and toes that I had made some progress in 5 days, even though I knew they had told me I likely wasn't going to be sent home. The very nice overnight nurse hooked me up to both the baby heartbeat monitor and the contraction monitor. The baby's heartbeat had nice variance and my contractions were coming in these waves. I wouldn't get one for seven or eight minutes and then I'd be struck with ten-ish minutes or so of contractions at a time. The nurse monitored me for about 45 minutes, and was so tired I was falling asleep between waves. I was also terribly uncomfortable being strapped to the bed. The nurse checked me and said I was a solid 3cm, stretchy to 4cm, so she would go ahead and admit me. I asked if I could PLEASE walk the hall because, OUCH, I really needed to move. I was unstrapped and got up to walk; it was about 6am.

I walked and leaned and contracted and walked and leaned and contracted for a couple hours. My in-laws arrived, a nurse prepared the birthing tub for me, and I contracted and contracted and contracted. Pete, my mom, and my mother-in-law were fabulous; all I wanted was pressure on my back and they gave it to me. They switched off between the three of them so their hands didn't get tired which was smart because I ended up asking for this particular soothing technique the entirety of labor. I got in the prepared tub around 9:30 and it felt so good. Pete got in with me and continued the back pressure, which was amazing. Things got fuzzy about this time because I was so tired and the water so warm and the pain getting really intense. I know for sure exactly what time my water broke because I made sure to check, but aside from that, this is about when all sense of time was lost to me. It had to be about ten o'clock when the nurse, Gee, asked me if I wanted to get out of the tub and walk around again, to which I said yes. I say about ten o'clock because my water definitely broke at 10:10 and that happened after being asked if I wanted to walk, getting up from the water and standing there through a wave of contractions, and then saying "Something popped." It was a strange feeling, my water breaking, and that was when I became apologetic.

It took three people to get me out of the tub because the contractions intensified exponentially with my water broken. I kept saying 'sorry'; "sorry this is taking so long," "sorry I can't do this on my own," "sorry I'm leaking everywhere." I apologized for everything from then until E was born. The nurse who ended up being with me during delivery, Aimee, said I was the most polite laboring woman she had ever nursed.

After getting out of the tub, someone decided to evaluate the water because it looked as though there may be meconium. My nurse kept me in my room until they made a determination, just in case. If there was meconium, I needed to be monitored and the baby checked, if not, I could walk. When it was determined there was meconium, I was strapped back up and asked to stay in bed. Things got hairy. I lost the ability to really control the pain because I couldn't move and get comfortable the way I wanted to. I don't know how long I was fighting through these contractions, but I was inconsolably in pain and the one thing I was holding on to was that I was making progress. Except when the nurse checked me and said I was still only 4cm, I just knew I couldn't take it any longer. I asked, please, for pain relief. Though I had really wanted to avoid an epidural, I got one and it was the best decision I could have made, and not just because it really did relieve the pain. The biggest problem I was having was not progressing because I wasn't relaxing because I was exhausted. The epidural let me sleep most of the afternoon, and when I woke up, I felt awesome and was ready to have a baby.

So the anesthesiologist came in and, though he was short both in stature and attitude, did exactly what he had to do quickly and efficiently. he gave me what was called a patient controlled analgesia epidural, which you can read about here. Basically, I was in charge of how much pain relief I got. The anesthesiologist gave me a test dose after putting the line in and I fell deeply asleep. When I eventually woke all the way up, the nurse checked me, found I was 8cm dilated, and took my button away so that I would feel everything when it came time to push.

Now, there were actually a lot of things going on while I was sleeping. It's important to mention that the baby was posterior, meaning his back was against my back, which is exactly the opposite of how he was supposed to be. Also, I had an anterior placenta. These two things made it difficult to accurately capture baby's heartbeat through a seriously contracting uterus. So while I was asleep, baby's heart rate kept dropping way more than anyone was happy to see. So all kinds of people kept showing up and having me change sleeping positions; from my left to my right, from my back to my hands and knees. It was quite scary, but having my midwife mother-in-law there really helped. If the nursing staff weren't reacting quickly enough, she took action. If something happened faster than my husband or I could understand, she made sure to explain to us what was going on. We took our cues from her. If she wasn't freaking out, we weren't freaking out, even if there was a lot of action taking place. I managed to half sleep through it all.

When I fully woke up, not only was I 8cm but the midwife and nursing staff had had enough of baby's heart rate being all over the place and not getting as good of a reading as they would like. They decided to put a scalp monitor in, which was fine with me, although I was sad that they would be hurting my little one before he'd even really entered the world. It definitely did help a lot, but it meant that when his heart rate did drop, it became much more of a panic situation as it was much more accurate.

Eventually, I was checked and found to be at 10cm, but I wasn't really ready to push, so the nursing staff continued to monitor me as I labored down (being left alone until my body was ready to push, no coaching allowed!). I was flipped onto my hands and knees because of the baby's heart rate, and that's the position that the need to bear down found me in. I truly does feel like needing to poop. It was about 6pm. I think maybe this is a good point to let the birthing pictures take over the story.

When pushing began.

Sympathy pushing.

I pushed and pushed, but he hadn't quite rotated all the way out of the posterior position. He got a little stuck halfway out.

Because he was stuck, the midwife shoved his head all the way back in, and with the next push, he was born!

My midwife's, my mother-in-law's, and my hands brought him into the world.

It's a boy!

Meeting our son.

Skyping my dad!

With Granny.

With mumsey.

With grandpa.

With my friend Kelly, who took the pictures.

With Aimee, my favorite nurse.

I had a second degree tear and needed nine stitches, but I didn't care. I was on cloud 9. Everett Albert Johnson was born on December 9th at 7:01pm. He weighed in at 7 lbs. 13 oz. and 21 in. long. This sweet little boy has so changed our lives and we are desperately in love. He is the best of 2014.