Holy Shit, I'm a Mom.

Sabrina Frances

Born August 19th, 2008
2:34 pm
6 lbs., 8 oz
19 1/4 inches

So, I went to bed Monday night with absolutely not a single sign that Sabrina was thinking about making an appearance sooner than later. My contractions were pretty much gone, as they had been. I wasn't overly tired. I wasn't overly energetic. I didn't have a feeling...in fact, I posted that I was sure she wasn't going anywhere just hours before.

At 3:30 am, I woke up to a bit of a trickle. I turned and realized it was going to be a lot more than a trickle so I got my ass out of bed. We have a Sleep Number bed, and those things plug into the wall. It is also a new bed, and it wasn't cheap. The only place I didn't want my water to break was in bed, because I didn't want to ruin the mattress, nor did I want to electrocute us all. Somehow, I managed to avoid getting even one little drop on the mattress. Elsewhere wasn't so lucky, but it wasn't that bad. Most of it ended up in the toilet.

Chris thought I had diarrhea, hence my sprint to the bathroom, so he was just as surprised as I was when I came back to bed and told him my water had broken. He was even more surprised as I calmly told him that we would need to leave within the hour since I was Group B Strep positive and I'd need to get antibiotics, so I was going to jump in the shower and he could go ahead and vacuum while I was doing that.

Hmmmm? Yes, I asked him to vacuum because I was going to do it that morning and I wanted to come home to a vacuumed house. Sadly, this isn't a nesting thing or anything like that, it's totally normal behavior for me. The only thing not normal is that I asked Chris to do it, normally I would do it myself.

I realized when I got out of the shower that my contractions were strong and every 2-5 minutes and I would be in active labor soon. Same thing happened when I miscarried. As soon as my water breaks, it's show time. The hospital is about 45 minutes away, so we got out of here as soon as Chris got his shower.

The whole way to the hospital the contractions were getting stronger and stronger and really freaking painful. I couldn't talk through them, could barely breathe through them. By the time we got to the elevator to the L&D floor, really the only word I could say was "epidural". And I said it over and over.

They attempted to get me admitted and all set up, it took far longer than it should have because I couldn't answer the questions when I was contracting, which was all the time, and I didn't seem to know any words except "epidural", "when", and "pllllleeeeaassseee??".

The midwife checked me and said I was dilated to 2. I called her a liar and threw her right out of the room. OK, not what happened but I wasn't happy because she claimed that I needed to be dilated to 4 before getting an epi. Oh hell no. I requested a MD instead of the midwife (we really didn't connect on any level at all so it was best to get someone else) and the nice doctor felt I shouldn't suffer (as I obviously was) but the epi might slow down the labor. She also said that the number of centimeters dilated wasn't as big an issue for her, as 2 for me may be someone else at 7. Or 10, as I pointed out.

I got that epidural at 7am and lemme tell you, it is the best.thing.ever. I no longer felt any contractions. I could breathe. I could open my eyes. I could converse with people. I was even pleasant to be around. I could do this. This was going to be fun!

They checked me at 9am and any worry about the epi stalling labor were thrown out the window as I was already 7 centimeters. Checked again at 11am and I was fully dilated. We were set to start pushing at noon.

At this point, the epi is still going strong, I'm still a joy to be around and looking forward to meeting our daughter. The nurse gets me started pushing. I'm doing "great" and everything is still wonderful. The epi is starting to wear off just a tad, so just in case I push my handy little "more" button to keep me covered. I'm starting to feel the contractions a bit, and not just the pressure they said the epi won't take care of, but as long as it doesn't get too bad, I'll be fine.

About a half hour of pushing later, the epidural ceased to do a damn thing. The nurses and OB seemed to think this was a good thing, as I would have something to push towards. I strongly disagreed, but it wasn't as if they were taking away my pain meds, it just wasn't working. I pushed for 2 1/2 hours straight. The first hour was pretty unproductive so they added pitocin to my IV to help make the contractions more consistent. It didn't make them stronger, but instead made them more consistent than before. Whatever, it all still hurt like hell. Pushing through the pain is seriously an out of body experience.

If "epidural" was my word for the morning, "vacuum" became my word of the afternoon. At some point, it was suggested that they might have to use the vacuum to get her out, as she just wasn't making the progress she should have. She basically was stuck behind my pelvic bone and with each push she would edge out just a tad, but as soon as I stopped, she sucked back up there.

Now, I'm all for pain meds, natural birth isn't for me, but my rational mind would not ask for the vacuum. I do understand it's a procedure that should only be done when it absolutely must be for the health of the baby. However, I wasn't my rational self so once they mentioned that, I saw it as a way out. A way to get her out, because clearly pushing wasn't working and they weren't aware of this, but I was going to just stop. I was done. I wasn't sure how they were going to get her out, but I figured that was their problem. As a result, after just about every push I asked if the vacuum was next. Or if they had decided to use it. Or if they could just let me know when they thought they might decide, that would be great.

The last half hour of pushing I pretty much shut everyone out, kept my eyes squeezed shut and pushed as hard as I possible could muster. She finally came out and I can't even describe the instant physical relief that provides.

But Sabrina's entrance into the world wasn't going to be easy. Hell, her incubation period was a whole mess of complications, why would birth be any different? She had the cord wrapped around her neck really tightly and she wasn't breathing at all. She was blue and totally unresponsive. The nurses grabbed her and took her to the warming lamp thing and ended up having to bag her to resusitate her, and within 5 minutes she was breathing and turning pink. We didn't get to hold her for a while as she needed to warm up and stay warm.

Once she was breathing it took her a minute to make any noise and once she did, it was amazing. My daughters voice. That's what she sounds like. This is who has been inside of me, wiggling around. Our baby girl is finally here.

Two years of trying. Countless appointments. Miscarriage. In-Vitro Fertilization. Hundreds of injections. 17 weeks of bed rest. A freaking epidural that wore off.

All forgotten in an instant.

Our beautiful daughter is here.