Afton Ruth's Grand Entrance

And so the birth story begins.... Being pregnant for the first time is stressful especially nearing the end. You have no clue what being in labor is like yet you are supposed to get out a stop watch and start timing things. The weekend before Afton was born Trevor worked a double from 3pm to 7am. I woke up at about 3am with some pretty bad back pain. I took a bath hoping it would help. Not so. At one point I was laying on the floor in my bathroom thinking how terrible it would be if I was in labor and Trevor wasn't even home. Eventually the pain went away and I went back to bed. The back pain came on and off throughout the weekend. Of course most of the time it was in the middle the night. Several episodes were so bad they sent me back to worshipping the white porcelain goddess. None of this was timeable, consistent, or getting stronger. It all ebbed and flowed. On Monday I decided after some discussion with my mother that this was becoming the real deal. On and off all day I had what we figured were contractions. This continued into Tuesday. By this point I was so fed up with it that I finally broke down and called the clinic hoping they would freak out that I had waited this long and tell me to go to the hospital immediately. I told the nurse what was going on and her response was that I was having Braxton Hicks. I wanted to punch her. These were so far from Braxton Hicks that I should have had my baby by then. At this point I was so worn down physically and emotionally. There was nothing we could do but wait. I did not have another noticeable contraction after the phone call with the lovely nurse. I had an appointment the next morning. We brought along my mom because Trev had a final later and in a just in case scenario I would end up at the hospital. At the appointment I found out I had lost five pounds since the week before from all my worshipping. They were concerned. Conclusions were jumped to that I had the flu. Not the case. Other things of concern: protein in my urine, slightly high blood pressure, dilated to a 3. I was sent to the hospital to have more labs run. We were glad we brought my mom. Because of the coolness of the date 12.12.12 every overly pregnant woman who could wanted to be induced. Because of this there was no room to put me so I ended up in the surgery recovery area. The nurse told me that had never happened before and how they also had never delivered a baby there before. Ummm thanks for giving me something to contemplate. I peed in another cup, my blood was taken, fetal monitoring was done. I didn't mention this before but I had had a nasty cold for over a week at this point. So between my cough and my over active child it was slightly difficult for the nurse to do the monitoring. I had been there for about an hour and everything was looking good. The nurse was basically saying they would probably send me home. My midwife did an OB consult and then came and told me that they were admitting me and I was going to have a baby soon. I was in shock and had to take a minute to process it all. Trev was way excited not only because he was finally getting his baby but frankly he was sick of me being pregnant and this made it so he would miss his final. My midwife explained that the OB she consulted with wanted me to be induced because I was starting to show very early signs of preeclampsia. They didn't want me to get any sicker at that point. My nurse went to work trying to find me a room. Someone was being discharged at that very moment. We gathered up our stuff and headed down the hall to room 112 where we would be spending the next couple of days. My midwife checked me again and I was at a 4. I was entering active labor on my own. While down there she also stripped my membranes OUCH! and then broke my water. About a half hour later pitocin was being pumped into my body along with penicillin for my group b strep and Iv fluids because I was dehydrated. I was told I could have the epi whenever I wanted. I wanted to wait till I really needed it. I started really feeling the contractions about a half hour after pit was started. They were very manageable. I really don't know what happened while we were waiting for me to progress. What I do remember is Trev and mom eating my hospital dinner since I wasn't allowed to eat, throwing up an orange Popsicle, eating pebble ice with a spoon, getting annoyed by the movie the Santa Claus on tv and watching the hills and valleys of my contractions on the monitor. When the contractions started getting worse I had to tell my mom and Trev to stop talking. Eventually I got out of the bed and had Trev stand in front of me. I held onto his biceps and put my head against his chest. I would hold onto him tightly as the contractions came. I have no clue how long this lasted due to the day being a complete time warp. Eventually I asked for the epi. This by far was the worst part of the experience. There is nothing like having a needle wiggling around in spine, trying to stay still and having some major contractions. Plus it seemed to take forever! I'm surprised I had the patience to let the guy finish what he was doing. Things become even more of a blur from this point on. I had some relief from the pain for a little bit and then it stopped working which brought on major amounts of lower back pain. I was redosed then a little bit later it stopped working again. They decided to check me and lo and behold I was complete. No wonder the drugs weren't doing the job . The nurse told me I would be pushing shortly. I freaked out a little because I didn't feel like I was ready to push yet. My mom had just barely left to watch my brother wrestle. So I called her and said, "Mom they checked me and I'm complete." She said, "Your an 8?" "No mom I'm going to start pushing soon I'm complete." She was way excited. The midwife was called and came a little bit later. She was on her way to a Christmas party and was dressed up really nice. She put a surgical gown over clothes and got down to business. Because the epi wasn't working very well I could pretty much feel everything. It didn't really hurt it was more in the realm of discomfort. I was also struggling to breathe because I kept coughing. I ended up using the oxygen mask. For the past several weeks I'd been joking with trev that I would cough our baby out. I kind of did. I pushed and pushed and pushed for about an hour and forty five minutes. Once her head was out I gave two final pushes and she was out. She was born @ 9:15 pm 12.12.12 in room 112. There were 8 other babies born at Orem hospital that day. She was the last of all of them.