I’ve been meaning to write her birth story for a few days now, but I’ve been busy. And, yes, by busy I mean staring at her angel eyes and waiting on those precious smiles - even if they are just poop smiles right now.
Ken and I had a great Valentine’s Day this year. We grilled steaks and I even had a glass of red wine. I thought maybe it would relax me and put me in labor. We went to bed about 9 PM. At 11:00 I woke up with a bad cramp. It passed and I went back to sleep. I woke up at 11:05 with the same cramp. 11:10, 11:15… Ok, time to wake up Ken. I didn’t know what to expect with contractions because they’d been described to me so many different ways. But ANY sensation every 5 minutes was pretty promising. I woke Ken up and we started talking about what to do, how long to wait, how bad they were. The contractions were uncomfortable and I probably would have described them as almost painful if I hadn’t been so excited. I took a bath and shaved my legs just in case this was it.
An hour had gone by and they were still 5 minutes apart, so we called the hospital. Dr. Betcher told us to wait another hour and see if they went away or intensified. Sometime around midnight we decided to walk around the block. Thinking back on that walk, it was magical. We’d stop when a contraction came on, I’d hold on to Ken and we would just laugh.
But, as the theme of my labor and delivery unfolded, things did not go according to schedule. After the walk, my contractions started becoming more irregular. We decided to try to go to sleep and see what happened. Of course, that was close to impossible. One, because I was in pain and second, because we were so excited.
Around 2:00 AM on Sunday we decided to go to the hospital just to see if I was dilating. I honestly thought that they would check me and if I was not dilating, they would send us back home. But, Dr. Betcher had already told the nurses that we had called and to be looking for us. We checked in at the Emergency Room. Ken got to say, “My wife’s in labor.” More smiles. When the attendant wheeled me to the Labor and Delivery floor, they were ready for us. Two nurses got us settled and admitted before we even had a chance to ask if we were going to stay or go. The nurses checked me and I was not dilated, but Dr. Betcher had told them to go ahead and keep me until he got there later that morning to check me. That’s when I called Mom. I told her nothing was really happening and to wait and come up at a decent hour. She peeked her head in the hospital room about 3:30 AM.
Dr. Betcher came in and checked me around 8:00 AM. My contractions had continued, but they were not increasing in frequency or intensity. We had not been to sleep. At first, the doctor told us we had some choices: 1) we could walk the halls and see if things got moving, 2) we could go back home until my labor progressed, 3) or we could go ahead and start Pitocin to strengthen my contractions. I was scheduled for an induction that Wednesday, February 18. He said he wanted to do an ultrasound before we made up our minds. We had already started leaning toward the Pitocin. Ken did not want to go back home, and my thought was if we were going to have to come back and induce in a couple days, might as well get started early since we were already there. When we did the ultrasound, the doctor changed his mind about our options. The low amniotic fluid level concerned him. He suggested we go ahead with the Pitocin. He didn’t want to wait or let me walk.
So, HELL began about 10:30 AM Sunday. Pitocin is an evil drug. Maybe others have had different experiences. Maybe my pain threshold is lower than I thought. Maybe everyone lies about how bad it is. Whatever, that shit HURT! I lasted about an hour before I was begging for pain medicine. Note to other pregnants: Stadol is not a pain reliever. It is a drug that makes you so drunk between contractions that you stop bothering the nurses. I think it’s more for them than the laboring mother.
(I had to stop writing to tend to Day and am just getting back to this 4 days later… so this is how it’s gonna be, huh?)
I labored with Pitocin and Stadol from 10:30 AM Sunday until 5:30 PM that afternoon when I had finally dilated to 3 cm – enough for the epidural. That was heaven. I finally felt like I could rejoin what was going on around me. Before that, the pain had me locked up in my own head. It took another 6 hours or so to dilate enough to start pushing. Around 11:30 I was 10 cm and started pushing. I was doing all I could with the energy I had left, but she was not coming down far enough for the doctor to assist with forceps or vacuum extraction. She was far enough down where we could see her head… but just wouldn’t come any further. After close to 2 hours pushing, we reassessed the situation. Dr. Betcher became concerned that Day was not tolerating labor very well. He told us she was in distress and we needed to seriously consider a c-section. After all of my reservations with a section, surprisingly, it didn’t take much discussion to decide to go ahead with the surgery. Hearing that your baby is in distress really doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for options.
The surgery was rough. Those who say you don’t feel pain, only pressure are insane. If that’s the case, then it’s the same kind of pressure you would feel if a full grown man were to stomp grapes with both feet on your abdomen while you’re lying flat on your back. Sorry, I call that pain. Finally they pulled her out and she cried immediately. I had kept it together through the entire process until that moment. I didn’t even think about it. I cried so hard. And thanked GOD right there on the table. It was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. She had a voice. I don’t understand how that sound punctured my heart the way it did. Ken went to see her immediately. On his way back, he saw my “guts” lying on my chest. When he got back to me, he told me that Day was perfect and beautiful and healthy. Then he said with a pale face and a shaky voice that the doctors were still doing some “pretty serious stuff” to me. I told him not to talk about it. Later he admitted that he thought maybe I wouldn’t make it. He said that every time he’d ever seen that much blood and guts (deer, cows, etc) that the “thing” had died. I think he was and is thoroughly impressed with what I went through physically.
They brought her to me and held her close to my face. I cried and kissed her while they put me back together. She had a head full of black hair, big bright blue eyes, and her daddy’s face. He makes such a pretty girl! We got a picture of that moment thanks to my friend Joedee who suggested we not forget to capture it – thank you, Joedee! Back in the labor room where I recovered, the nurses transitioned Day in the same room so we were never separated. She nursed as soon as they let me hold her. What a good little rule follower! That part went as planned - I was never away from her and never anxious about what they were doing to her.
So, needless to say, my experience was not at all what I had envisioned, but it turned out to be more than worth every second. I ended up getting what I wanted in a roundabout way: I got to experience going into labor, feeling contractions, pushing, AND a section – all with one baby. That way, if I never have another child, I can at least say I have been through all of it. Well, enough of it.
There were a lot of years that I could only imagine what it must be like to look into the eyes of a child that I had helped create. There were just as many years that I wondered if I would ever know how that felt. And now I know. And of course, there are no words for that. It is heaven on earth. The purest peace.
