Thursday morning I went to my regular OB appointment expecting to hear that there had been no change and she still wasn't coming! Imagine my surprise when my doc told me I was on my way and he didn't expect me to make it through the weekend! Of course, that just made me even more nervous!! I had been having false labor all week, been expecting to have her for at least two weeks already, and anxious that I wouldn't make it to the hospital in time! I left the doctors office a bit overwhelmed ;) Even though I was ready to have her I wanted Daniel to be home and everything in place when it was time to go to the hospital so I didn't do anything to try to make things happen any quicker that day. Daniel gets home from work, my mom makes dinner for us, we eat, get the kids ready for bed, in bed, and still we just wait. A little before 10 I'm on the computer and Daniel and my mom are watching tv. I start to feel a wave of pain (not bad) across my back which made me wonder....it wasn't like the other false labor pains I had been having. Ten minutes later I got another one. I'm actually excited that true labor has actually begun! I had about 5 of the these contractions ten minutes apart and then decided to go tell Daniel and my mom. Finally something predictable! My mom had already changed into her pj's (why, I don't know and she doesn't either because we should have known this was going to happen :). We call Daniel's mom to come over to stay with the kids because my mom was going to the hospital with us. My pain and the contractions are still manageable and I didn't feel alarmed about speeding to the hospital so when Daniel's mom got here and I wasn't in a hurry she got really nervous (considering my labor history) when I wasn't leaving right away (had to change my facebook status! :) Hindsight...should have stayed home longer anyway....continuing on though....
It was probably about 11:30 when we got to the hospital. The car ride wasn't bad and I actually thought maybe I was having the false stuff again since the contractions weren't really coming on strong yet (I was expecting everything to happen super fast). We get to triage and sign in, I inform the nurse that I have a history of rapid labor and she gets moving pretty quickly (don't you know I felt pretty dumb when nothing happened for a long time). She puts me in a triage room and the nurse who is going to take care of me comes in. Older lady, kind of slow, says she been doing this for over 40 years. Imagine my surprise when she checks to see how much I've dilated then has to call in another nurse because she's not sure!!!! My nurse thought I was 8 cm which gave me great joy...the other nurse checked and said I was barely 4 cm...no change since my appointment that morning. What???? I get hooked up to the monitors (which are really annoying by the way). Unless you are lying down and don't move they don't stay on right. There was no way I could labor flat on my back and not move around. Plus, every time I had to go to the bathroom I had to call the nurse to unhook the monitor so I could go. The whole time I am in there I can tell that the monitors aren't getting a correct reading but no one is coming to check on me. Weren't the nurses supposed to be watching that sort of thing?? After an hour or so the nurse comes back in to see if I've dilated any more, but it hadn't changed much...maybe to 5 cm (but how reliable is she???) so she goes out to call the doc on duty to see what the doc wants to do. Meanwhile my contractions are getting closer together and a bit more intense, but how would they know when the monitor isn't reading right and no one is checking on me. Thirty minutes after the nurse had left she comes back to tell me that it would be okay if I WENT HOME since not much progress had been made. Are you kidding me???? She obviously didn't know my history OR what had just been going on in the half hour she was gone! I know my body pretty well after having two kids and there was no way I was going home. It was starting to get intense. I told her that I was having more frequent contractions and going home was not an option. This was probably around 1:30 or 2am. She leaves me to labor in my little triage room...uncomfy bed, strapped to monitors, increasing pain, Daniel and my mom sitting in hard chairs. I have to get up and pee several times and finally just stay up because the contractions are getting really bad. I'm hanging outside of my door trying to find a nurse, any nurse to tell them that I was feeling a lot of pressure and the baby is ready to come out. Nobody is around. Finally somebody appears and asks me if I need something so I tell them and they call my nurse (bummer) to check me out. I don't think anybody was believing me because I was pretty composed for someone about to give birth. She checks and I'm finally dilated to 8 or 9 so she calls delivery nurse who comes in and starts to hook me up to the IV and take me to the delivery room. The delivery nurse is also telling me to hold on so she can call the doctor, etc. I'm thinking these nurses have never had a natural birth because when it's time, IT'S TIME! Stop telling me to wait! We get over to delivery and she's trying to get everything set up. I'm in pain...I can feel baby and really ready to get her out. The nurse who takes care of the baby comes and says to my nurse that 4 other women are complete (10cm) and ready. The nurses were running around like crazy...a little short staffed, they weren't expecting everyone to be complete at the same time especially with only one doctor on call. They even had to call another one of the doctors to come in and even asked somebody if they didn't mind using the midwife (the nurses are all talking in my room about this). I was told that the doctor was coming to me first because I was going natural and the others had epidurals so they could wait! The doctor finally gets in, checks me out and says I'm still just shy of 10 cm so she wasn't ready for me to push yet...I am not believing this!! I keep telling her it hurts, baby is ready and I'm ready and finally she gives the okay. Here we go! I start to push and the doc informs me that Joelle is facing up (babies are supposed to come out face down). As I'm pushing she is trying to manually turn Joelle face down. Let me tell you that hurts worse than the contractions themselves. Having her face up also made it harder to get her out. It's harder to get her past the pelvic bone. So far I think I am doing pretty good keeping composure, no screaming, and I was pretty proud of myself....then Joelle is RIGHT THERE and everyone keeps telling me to PUSH HARD! That's when the screaming began :) There was just no way I could do it without screaming. Getting the head through hurts, but it is such an indescribable sensation. Joelle was crying before she was even completely out. The umbilical cord was also wrapped around her neck once which is no surprise to me considering how much she moved around in utero. What a joy to have her out! Friday, October 24, 2008 at 3:41 am. They wipe off Joelle and hand her to me pretty quickly. It's such a wonderful feeling to hold your just born baby and each time I cherish it more and more. I got to hold her for what seemed like awhile before they took her to weigh, measure, clean, etc.
This time my mom was with us when Joelle was born and it was so great having the extra encouragement and another hand to hold as I was going through labor and delivery. I enjoyed watching the emotion on her face as I was experiencing pain and joy as Joelle was born, and I know it was such a blessing to her being able to witness Joelle's birth.
Daniel was great, too even when I was telling him I didn't think I could go through childbirth again. But, as the Lord says the pains of childbirth are quickly forgotten. They are, and the outcome is totally worth it.
