Oh Yeah….and I Had a Kid

Posted on September 15th, 2008 by Amy

How's that for a cute kid?

Well, it looks like I got my wish that Oliver not be born on Sept. 11th; he was born on the 12th.

Pretty much all day on the 11th I was having odd menstrual cramp pains and my back was aching. The pain was barely anything other than a tad bit annoying and I ignored it. Since I never went into spontaneous labor with Cara, I really didn’t know how it all would start.

The “contractions” set up a five minute apart pattern for most of the day but since they weren’t genuinely painful, I just kept track of them and went on with work.

Tucker got home. We ate dinner. Tucker put Cara to bed. We watched boring ass TV and went to bed.

While I was in bed, something kind of “popped” and I got my first “real” contraction. [My water didn't break. Maybe Oliver just popped into place?]

Since staying in bed wasn’t an option, I got into the shower and instantly my pain went away. I was still having a contraction but the hot water REALLY helped me. It also helped that I wasn’t having any back labor like I did with Cara.

Once the hot water ran out, I decided that I should probably find out how far apart my contractions were coming.

2-3 minutes and lasting about 45 seconds a piece.

Uh oh.

Mind you, Tucker was still in bed this whole time.

“Let me know if you need me to do anything…*snore*…”

Once I started getting annoyed at the fact that my heel was touching the floor while I swayed through a contraction, I decided that it was probably time to call my mom.

I puttered around the apartment for a little while longer and got a bag together with the camera, our phones and wallets and told Tucker to call Mom to come and stay with Cara.

I got back in the shower while we waited on Mom and kinda wish that I could have just stayed in there.

So, off Tucker and I went to the hospital.

Tucker took the longest route to the hospital since we didn’t do a “dry run”. We couldn’t remember which floor L&D was on. We weren’t quite sure what entrance to use. It would be an understatement to say that we weren’t ready.

When I walked up to the L&D desk I was asked, “Can I help you?”.

Seriously?

Think fast! There’s an OBVIOUSLY pregnant chick walking VERY slowly toward you at midnight and you work in Labor and Delivery. Why is she there?

Up to this point, I was a labor RAWK STAR.

I was calm. I was relaxing into the contractions and I was rocking it.

And then I walked through those L&D doors.

And they wouldn’t let me get out of bed.

Bastards.

Anyway, I was 4 cm dilated and they admitted me. My favorite part of the whole deal was when they hooked me up to the monitors and made me stay in bed and then started asking me questions about my level of education and any address. I remember telling Tucker to “deal with her” since I was just a bit busy dealing with excruciatingly painful contractions.

I gotta say that I never really “bought” the idea to keep moving during labor. I mean, I understood the mechanics of it since moving would help move the kid down, but, I didn’t really get it.

The pain difference between being able to move while I contracted and being forced to stay in bed during a contraction was like night and fucking day. What had been totally manageable [but painful] while moving became OH MY GOD THE PAIN painful in bed.

No wonder so many people resort to an epidural; I did.

Fast forward to 8 or 9 cm [depends on who you ask] like 2 hours later. Impressive, no? I was gonna have this kid in record time. My water even broke on its own and made an audible pop. How cool is that?

And then I quit dilating. Shit!

I was having TONS of rectal pressure and I really wanted to push but I couldn’t. The epidural couldn’t touch the sensation that my butt was going to split in half and after four hours of that and the suggestion of a “tad bit of pitocin” I threw in the towel. It shouldn’t have taken me four hours to dilate to complete.

Also, since my water had broken, there was no real cushion for Oliver and his cord kept getting squished and there were a couple of times when I couldn’t reposition myself to get his heart tones back within normal limits.

Anyway, I had another c-section. I’m alright with this section. My body did what it was supposed to. [Sorta.]

I went into spontaneous labor. I dilated almost completely. My water broke on its own. I had a pretty decent labor experience and am surprised that I am so cool with the section. I’m glad I’m so cool with the section.

Also, this kid was 9 lbs 1 oz. I’m 5′2″. I’m not saying that he was too big for me to deliver vaginally cause I have no way of knowing that but DAMN that would be a big kid to have vaginally. I’m just sayin’.

Oh and Tucker finally came up with a middle name: Harrison.

That’s what I did this weekend. How about you?

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