My Birth Story

9/10/10-
While watching some TV with Jason and Ethan I noticed I was getting painful contractions pretty frequently so I asked Jason to go get the laptop so I could use Contraction Master to start timing them.  They were averaging a minute long and 4-4 ½ apart.  So after a little more of the show we got up and started getting things ready.  Cleaned the house up the rest of the way, finished packing and getting things together as well as putting Ethan to bed, if this was it he needed some sleep before we got out the door.  I finished some laundry and started timing again, they were a little more intense and now 3 ½ - 4 minutes apart.  We laid down and tried to rest, Jason slept, I obviously did not.  Around 12:30 I decided to get up and start getting ready to go.  We got the car packed and after two calls to the hospital and no return call we decided to just leave as my contractions were intensifying quickly.  So we got Ethan in the car and off we went!

9/11/10-
The car ride kind of sucked, laboring in that position was painful.  Between contractions I was laughing and joking with Jason but during them I was in some good pain, they were 3 minutes apart.  We got to the hospital and Jason dropped me off at the front and went on to set Ethan up at his brothers and put him back to bed.  I went to triage and was put up in a room and left to wait.  The contractions were getting pretty serious and I was having a hard time getting through them and preferred to labor sitting cross-legged in the bed.  The midwife came in and checked me and said I was 6cm, 100% effaced and super stretchy, though his head was still floating and not staying down, that when she’d touch it he’d just float away.  She said they were admitting me and that they’d get me a room.  While waiting for the room Jason got there and held my hand and helped me through the pain.  Around 3:15 they got me in a room, standing and walking through the contractions made them SO much worse, that was unexpected!  They had to start an IV and give me a bag of fluids and take blood work before I could get the epidural.  They tried to start the IV in one hand and blew my vein, they tried in the other hand and blew it again but not without trying some other things that made so much fluid build up that when they finally gave up it looked like there was a little plum stuck under my skin on the top of my hand, so they finally ended up putting the IV in the back of my arm.  This all was extremely painful and very hard to take on top of the contractions, not to mention they were blowing a vein in one arm while the tech was taking blood from the other and I was having a contraction.  It was a bit of an overload!  They said it would be about 15-20 minutes before I could get the epi.  After about 15 or so minutes the anesthesiologist came in and we started to process to get the epidural, they let Jason stay this time and I was SO thankful!!!  It really wasn’t bad, nothing compared to the damn IV.  I laid back and about a minute or two later I felt a pop and blam! My water broke all over the bed, there was so, so much fluid and just kept coming out.  The nurse changed the towels under me and then a lot more fluid came out.  The nurse called the MW and said my water broke and asked if she wanted to come check me, the MW said she’ll wait for the epi to kick in first.  Then all of a sudden I was laying on my side and I realized I was pushing, and I couldn’t stop.  The nurse looked at me and said ‘are you pushing?!’  I nodded and she started yelling at me to stop and all I could whimper was “I can’t!, I can’t!”  I heard her calling for my MW and for some additional assistance as I kept pushing.
The “urge to push” everyone talks about is more than that.  It is more than an urge, it is mandatory, you don’t have a choice, you are PUSHING.  You can’t stop, the pain is horrendous and yet you cannot stop.  Trust me I wanted to, I want to stop and wait for the epi to kick in, but I simply couldn’t.   I was laying on my side and pushing with all my might, even though I was pushing I did NOT want to open my legs or to roll over to my back.  Kind of a strange position to be in to be having a baby I might add.  After a few pushes and after he was about to crown I felt the worst pain yet, it was a pain in my left hip that felt like it was being ripped off, the pain was unbearable and yet I kept pushing.  I got a few breaks that seemed to last 10 seconds or so, then all of a sudden he was crowning and holy crap, the pressure and pain from that was something else.  After the head was out they told me to push again to which I said “can’t you just pull him out!?” haha!  My MW said, “um, no.  You need to push!”  And with one (maybe two?) more pushes there he was and oh so beautiful.  Jason was amazing through it all.  I could tell by the tone of his voice he was a little scared, not scared, scared, but helpless scared, his calm voice talking to me and bending over to be close to me really did help, he was my rock.  The baby came out amazingly clean, they barely even had to clean him, just dry him off.  He didn’t cry no matter what they did to him, jiggle him, slap his little feel a bit, rub his back, nothing.  He was perfectly content to just sit there on my chest.  Then he proceeded to poop, he really was that comfy.  ;0) After Jason cut the cord he stayed on my chest for at least another 20-30 minutes before they took him to do his assessment and weigh him.  While still on my chest they did my post birth care, checked for tears which I didn’t have any of this time thank goodness, and delivered the placenta which wasn’t to bad.  I didn’t want to push, the urge to push was GONE, but one little half hearted push and it was out.  When the midwife was checking out the placenta she said it was a little strange (not in a bad way) because it had an extra lobe. 
Then they took him to weigh him and he was 6 pounds, 14 ounces, just a little bit smaller that his brother who weighed 7 pounds, 1 ounce.  Both were 20 inches long.  They noticed he was grunting a bit and said that because he came so fast he had wet lungs because he didn’t have a lot of time coming out to squeeze the fluid off.  They brought in a machine to put him on and monitor his oxygen levels, they were high so they weren’t to worried about it.  When I got him back we tried to nurse, I was nervous about it since Ethan couldn’t latch and I had to exclusively pump for 9 weeks before he could even begin to latch.  That wasn’t the case though, after a few tries he was on and nursing like a champ.  After initially nursing he fell into his recuperative sleep, which lasted about 7 or 8 hours I think.  He slept forever and we eventually ended up waking him up to eat.  At this point he was still grunting and he went back on the machine just to be sure his oxygen levels were staying up, he was running between 98 and 100% so they said he just was still in transition and that it should stop within the first 12 hours of life. 
As for me, this delivery though natural and fast, I wouldn’t have any other way.  And recovery is a complete 180 from Ethan, from the moment after delivery (when the contractions stopped, lol) I felt pretty dang good.  I wasn’t sore and was barely swollen.  With Ethan I wasn’t to sore but I was horrendously swollen, it was bad.  This time there wasn’t crazy bleeding (though there was/is still a lot) but Im not gushing all over the floor like with E and overall it was just easier.  That was a welcome surprise!  The most painful part is actually the two spots where they blew my veins before getting me in the back of the arm.  They are both still extremely tender and hurt when touched.  A couple days ago the areas around the spots turned green and on my left hand two of my knuckles started to turn black from the reabsorbing blood.  I truly hate IV’s!
We are loving life as a family of four and cannot believe how incredibly lucky we are to have two amazing sons.  We are so blessed and are looking forward to forever with each other.