The task on my list to write down the birthing story has been a bit daunting. For someone who vividly remembers experiences, the fact that I only remember fragments of the evening intimidates me. But before I forget anything else, I will attempt to write it down.
On Wednesday September 24, 2014
My last supper was at Tucano's....it looked like this (view below.) Once again, I made a home-run at Tucanos with those I went with and was eating 45 minutes after every one else was done.
I also drank a ridiculous amount of water which in some ways was dumb because I needed to pee every ten minutes even before they pumped me full of saline. Why did I do it? I heard that "pokes" hurt less when there is more water in your body and so I take it to the extreme. I'm weird and was more afraid of getting the IV and epidural than the actual labor.
At work, I felt like everyone was treating me like I was going to die. Although, it was really nice to hear what their last words to me would be because they were very sweet. We ended with my performance review, I was very nervous to hear what others had said about me and was super scared about talking to my manager about it. It was better than I could have imagined. It was a boost of confidence. They rated me much higher than I rated myself and all of their words were very kind.
The hospital asked us to call them at 5pm to know what time we were to be admitted. When we called at 5pm, they said come in at 6:15. We were very surprised and it didn't really seem real at that point. I felt nervous, Dave had to go watch something to get his mind off of it. Not that we weren't prepared, we had heard that in the past they often have you come in much later than the "predicted" time because inductions take the back burner. I couldn't really think about anything at that point, I just prayed and prayed that Penny was ready (I was very worried she would be too small.) All day I had been going through mood swings of anticipation, curiosity, and complete fear.
The lady that checked us in had a disposition of someone who knows a secret and our room was absolutely gorgeous. I guess that's what you get when you have a heart condition. A room coated in the daintiest shade of purple with a view of not only the car lights zooming by but the sunset. I remember rolling up the shades and soaking in the moment with Dave. It has become an accidental tradition. On our wedding day we shared a similar experience, Dave and I peeked out the temple window on our way to the sealing room. At times, it helps to take a second to breath deeply and enjoy a view before moving onto one of those monumental moments.
We next met our nurse Sharon. Oh how I miss Sharon. We bonded with her immediately and I felt like I was treated like a queen because of how attentive to detail she was. After checking my cervix, not much had changed over the last few weeks. I was dilated to 1.75 and was 75% effaced. She numbed my arm before sticking in the IV (thank you thank you) and then ran off to get the medicine we would receive to be induced.
The medicine is called Cytotec. All I knew is that I'm happy they didn't have to "strip my membranes" because I just pictured a chisel digging out my insides. Cytotec is a small pill, placed as far into the cervix as possible to start the process of labor. She brought in 4 pills and explained that she would place a Cytotec every 3 hours until the morning. She said usually that is when they start the Pitocin so try to get sleep while I can.
I'm a goal-maker. So I had in my mind that I didn't want any pain medication until at least 10:30pm and she placed the pill at 7:45. I felt uncomfortable but not miserable. I did notice my contractions were getting closer and closer together but I thought that was normal. By the time she came to place another pill my contractions were 2 minutes apart. She was shocked because I guess it's pretty uncommon but I was officially in labor without the need of anymore medicine.
I still didn't want the epidural quite yet, even though I had made my goal. She explained that there is a medicine called Fentanyl that helps control pain but it only lasts about an hour. I decided to go that route at about 11:30 so I could catch some sleep. I took a couple of more doses and knew when it would wear off because I felt uncomfortable again.
At about 2:45am, I got up to pee (again) and the nurse came in to check my cervix. Not only had I advanced to a 5 but she accidentally broke my water. Things progressed quickly after that. Intense contractions immediately began and they were only a minute apart so she ran out to find the epidural guy quickly. He was very talented seeing that he only had a minute to have the epidural placed in the very particular spot.
I do like that I got to experience labor pains, they weren't what I expected and weren't as bad as I expected. I was also very grateful for modern medicine to help alleviate some of the pain. After the epidural was in, Sharon was a bit concerned because our baby's heart was dropping with contractions. Often, if the heart drops they will eventually call for a c-section. I didn't care what type of birth we had, as long as our baby was safe. Sharon put me on oxygen which helped the baby's heart but ended up giving me the feeling that I really was disconnecting from the world.
Dave probably should have slept at that point but instead he held my hand as I avidly watched the monitor. Every time her heart would drop, I went into panic mode and Dave would have to calm me down. I don't know how people go through something like birth without someone who has such a calming influence as Dave. I was slightly worried because I felt pain through the epidural during that first hour. A type of pressure I was sure would intensify as the night continued.
Only an hour later, Sharon came in to check my progress and I had dilated from a 5 to a 10 in that hour. I was ready to push. Penny was ready to come, much more ready than I had originally thought. Not being able to feel your legs but still needing to push as hard as you could was one of the oddest feelings in the world. Everything went well the first hour but by the second hour began, my body felt the exhaustion. I felt like the oxygen was suffocating me and my left arm had gone completely numb with an aching in my left shoulder. It shouldn't have been the epidural because I got a smaller dose than most ladies because of vasovagal. My doctor came in to see how everything was going and I could feel his hand which was a little scary to me. There was just a patch that the epidural wasn't effective but it wasn't too bad, just interesting.
The second hour of pushing was not very effective, I felt like Penny did better when she worked her way down by herself instead of when I was pushing. I was getting so dizzy in between pushes and she was far but still not to the point of crowning. I was trying so hard to have her before 6am because that was shift change for all of those I was working with, Sharon and Dr. Jacob. Although, I'm sure the other nurses and doctors were just as good, I'm the type of person that likes consistency so I kept trying, and kept apologizing and kept feeling so dizzy that I have no idea if I was passing out.
I also was shaking violently. I know it's normal but it didn't feel normal. The blood pressure cuff continued to go off but wouldn't stop squeezing my arm since I couldn't control my muscles from spasms. Dave was the best part of it all. I became succumbed by my fears but then I could look at Dave and he was the only thing that kept me at bay. His eyes would get big with excitement and he would mouth along with Sharon when she would count to ten. At one point, they just asked him to count since he was so enthusiastic about it. When we first saw her head it was full of thick hair and I knew Dave had seen her by his expression. He is packed to the rim of sincere happiness and I was happy to be a part of providing that.
Near the end of the second hour, Dr. Jacob asked if I wanted to have forceps so that we could get her out. I tried a few more times to push on my own and then felt quite disappointed in myself for deciding to go with the forceps but I really didn't want them to leave me for a complete new staff. Sharon reassured me that she would stay, she wanted to meet the baby and that helped me a lot. It's very good I decided on the forceps because even with me pushing and a grown man pulling, it still took quite a bit of time to get Penny out.
It was a bit unfortunate that even though my contractions had been on top of each other for quite some time, they had decided to slow down at that point. After the first 4 pushes, the contraction slowed to 3 minutes a part. After the second 4 pushes, the contracted waited 6 minutes before resuming. Between the third 4 pushes and the fourth 4 pushes, I felt like those were the longest 8 minutes of my life. I could just see Dr. Jacob's face focused on the monitor, giant salad tongs sticking out of my body and Dave's face reassuring me that it was going to be okay. I kept asking if she was okay and then apologizing to everyone in the room, it felt too quiet. Quiet meant trouble to me.
Side note: I'm absolutely in love with this picture. I know, it's gross to others but to me, it's magical and intimate.This is my baby and she still makes that face when she's stretching.
Luckily the fourth was the trick. Dave described her coming out as he saw her head and then her head just kept coming. When we finally saw her body both Dave and I gasped in surprise, she was HUGE. How was I measuring small? Our nurse and doctor predicted she would maybe be six pounds but no, this baby didn't look like it would've fit inside of me. Dave pranced around. I could tell he was conflicted on whether to stick near me or go be with the new baby. The nurse helped him decide by reminding him he was on picture duty and would slip in phrases like, "hey, you might want to get this."
She had arrived: September 25, 2014 6:10am 7 lbs 14 oz and 20 inches long. I immediately knew I was losing a lot of blood. The shakes had gotten worse. The oxygen mask was finally off of my face but I still felt like I couldn't breathe. My eyes were rolling back into my head and I felt like I was seizuring. They put Penny in my arms, this is the moment everyone talks about. This is when you first get to realize you have a baby. Penny immediately wanted to tell me everything, she was just talking away with stories that I she didn't know I couldn't understand. I loved that. Even more, it was apparent she was already a daddy's girl. Dave came over and said, "hey Penny!" and she stopped her chatting to look for his face. Ever since, he seemed to stick by her side and be the same calming influence on her that he's always been for me.
My arms were so numb that I didn't feel like I had a good grip on her. I was panicked that I couldn't "feel" her but even more, I didn't want to drop her. I tried to tell those around me but my mouth wasn't working right. Everything about me was swollen and bloated and I couldn't keep my head up. I knew I loved her right away despite the fact that my sense of touch seemed broken.
Unfortunately, my parents came in shortly after and saw me in the seizuring state. My dad came over right away to put Penny's name in our family history. While he was walking towards the bed and not looking where he was going, I knew he was headed to sit right on my leg and I couldn't move it. I tried to get his attention and he simply smiled, sat on my leg anyway (without seeming to notice) and said, "I know doll, I know." I remember thinking, no, you don't know, you would have noticed if I sat on your leg. I remember my mom telling me how proud she was and crying into my shoulder. It was very tender moment, I don't think I had the energy to respond. The new nurse wanted to hurry me downstairs but my legs didn't work, she kept asking me to get up and sit in the wheelchair but I couldn't keep my eyes open or move my legs to the side of the bed. So, they wheeled me down the hallway on another bed.
It's slightly unfair that they thrust so much information at you at the hospital. I couldn't register anything and I was signing really important documents left and right. People would be right in my face and I can remember them saying, "well, you need to remember..." but I don't remember what I need to remember. Especially within the first few hours after, I was completely zoned out between the drugs, not getting sleep and the tiny flickers of what was going on.
I had really wanted to see Penny get her first bath but I apparently missed all of that. Luckily, Dave had gotten used to taking more pictures so we've got some cute ones of those moment. He also didn't leave her side since that first conflicted moment. I do remember waking up in the middle of the afternoon to see Dave asleep on the FLOOR, that's when I sent him home to sleep. I knew he needed it when he didn't respond to anyone for 5 hours, he really zonked out.
I didn't think I would be hungry in the hospital but apparently I could eat everything in the world. With every meal, I had soup and jello. It was a given in my mind. I hated using the bathroom. It was the one thing I dreaded every day. With a million visitors, I do remember a doctor from Valley OBGYN coming in and telling me that our baby had the rarest blood type. There was a moment on Friday evening that I hit a wall with visitors, I was done. I needed some space. I hadn't felt that before. I love people and being around them but they were too much to handle at that point. I was feeling bad because Penny needed to eat when visitors came to hold her and it threw us all off our schedules.
Coming home at 6:10am Saturday morning was a great thing because there were less people on the road. Nursing has been one of the biggest learning curves. I now know, if I have feverish symptoms I'm overdue for another feeding but learning signs like that from your body is not one of the things they told me about in the hospital (I think?) Anyways, Penny had bad jaundice right away. On Saturday morning, it was 12.6 on Sunday morning it was 18.1. Anything 20 or above is considered "critical condition" so they ordered us the lights to have at home. The delivery was supposed to get to us by 1pm on Sunday and they didn't arrive until 6:30pm.
I was worried about her for a bit. But each day her jaundice went a bit more down than the last. Unfortunately, we had to go every morning around 7am-8am to go get a vial of blood drawn from her poor feet. All together, she had to get the blood drawn eight times, so you can imagine how sensitive her feet were. The day she came off of the lights because her jaundice was finally lower than 11 was celebrated by everyone. She couldn't sleep in the lights very well and it hurt everyone's eyes and 4 days without human comfort was far too long for a newborn baby. I immediately dressed her in some of my favorite outfits and did a photo-shoot but that's because I'm like that. I wanted to show off my darling girl. She will probably get used to the photography.
Now, we are finally getting closer to a routine. My milk is finally regulating and our schedule is beginning to become more consistent. Dave is back at work :( and I'm learning to be a stay at home mama. It helps that I happen to have the cutest fan on my side.
I believe in Penny's from heaven.
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