Tomorrow at about 2 my Sprogling turns two years old. There was a time about four years ago that I would never ever have a child, so this is incredibly big. TWO! How the heck did that happen?
So in honour of this momentous occasion, here is his birth story. Cause everyone wants to read about amniotic fluid and placentas!
My waters had broken the morning of the fifth but as we had gone into the hospital the night before for a false alarm, I didn't want to go in and get told that we were wrong again. So we postponed and procrastinated all day long. I spent half the day wandering around IKEA, leaking fluid. I can tell you, you have never lived until you've had to use the IKEA bathroom twice in one visit to change your pad. So we mostly walked around and shopped until at about 11 we went to grab some donuts (last minute craving) and when we got back discovered I had soaked through a pad, my underwear, my pants and most of the car seat. So at that point we decided there could be no doubt that it was real and we headed to the hospital.
We were admitted and sat in the Triage for a bit. A very very nice resident came and checked me out and confirmed that my membranes had indeed ruptured so he went to talk to the OB on call about what to do with me. It had almost been 24 hours, the magic number that they wait for labour to induce you after your membranes rupture so they really didn't want me going home. They said that I should probably walk around for a bit to see if we could make the small contractions that I was having increase and become consistent.
That meant that I wasn't allowed to go home. This wasn't really part of our plan. We had figured that they wouldn't want us there and that we would get to go home and come back in the morning, but no such luck.
We were taken to a Labour and Delivery room and at that point the other OB on call came in and decided that they didn't want to take the risk of my labour not starting quick enough so they hooked me up to an i.v. and started Oxytocin. This was also not part of our plan. It meant that I was tied to the bed and fetal monitors. No walking, no real moving and no going to the bathroom without a lot of unhooking by the nurses. So it was about 2 in the morning by this point so we tried to get some sleep. Not really happening, but we tried.
So fast forward through an awkward night of not much sleep and we arrive at 7:30 Monday morning and the nurses change over and my mother arrives with food for Rob. Did I mention that I wasn't allowed to eat anything in the off chance that I had to go to the operating room? Yah... sucky. The last thing I ate was a Timbit at 11 the night before.
We had the nicest nurses ever. We were lucky and had two devoted just to us as one was new and from Ontario and the other was observing/teaching her. By this point, what had been basically no labour at all turned into OH MY GOD! every two minutes for 50 seconds at a time. They were right on top of each other and to make matters worse, every second one or so was making me puke. At that point the very kind nurse S asked if maybe, even though she knew it wasn't part of my birth plan, because yes, she had read it, but maybe did I wanted an epidural? Now, yes an epidural wasn't on my plan, but neither was being induced. So I made a decision and the lovely anaesthesiologist, Dr. K became my new best friend. I was able to sleep finally after that and slept till about 11. Doctors came in and checked me and I was at about 6 centimetres and the baby was facing to the left side.
I was awake and active after that. Played some cards with my mother and chatted with the nurses and Rob. They had given me a catheter, but unfortunately due to all the UTI's I had as a teen it hurt like a mother. Even through the epidural. So they took it out and it turned out I was able to walk still. Needed help but could walk with the epidural. The nurses kept telling me that I wasn't supposed to be able to do that as I hadn't gotten a walking epidural, but there you go. I got up to pee at about 12:30. That went well until I got up to go back and at that point I started puking again. Apparently if you start puking and bleeding (which I was) there is a good chance that your fully dilated. So the doctors came back in and lo and behold I had dilated the full four centimetres in that hour and the baby had "deflated and turned" so was in the correct position. Hoorah!
So from about 1:30 on I was pushing. To be perfectly honest I don't remember a whole bunch about this part. I know that another anaesthesiologist came in and topped me up as I was really starting to feel the contractions again and at this point really didn't want to, but mostly I just remember moving into a lot of positions (I think I changed about 5 times) and pushing. The pushing was hard as until about the last 20 pushes or so, as I couldn't feel the contractions at all. It was just pressure. And when the Sprogling's head got far enough down there wasn't a whole lot of difference in the pressure of him and the contraction.
We did just fine until it was actually time to push him out. At that point his head got stuck. The doctor was getting worried as Patrick was getting tired (not to mention me!) and he wanted to do an episiotomy. This at least I got my way. He wasn't putting sharp things anywhere near my girly bits. He kept lying to me and saying one more push, and finally the Sprogling's head was out. Not pushing was actually harder than pushing. After that 3 more pushes and a little wet and squirming body was on my chest. The doctor waited until the cord stopped pulsing before Hubby cut it (this was another request of ours but at that point, if he had cut it early I wouldn't have noticed.)
I was crying and I think at that point it actually became real. Strange that until that moment I had managed to distance myself from what was happening so much that it didn't seem as if the birth was really happening. I cuddled the Sprogling for about 15 minutes than handed him off to the nurses and then Hubby while the placenta was being delivered. After the placenta was out the Doctor set about stitching me up. 15 stitches and second degree lacerations. Ouch.
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So that is the story of the Sprogling's birth. What I didn't put in there is how the nurses both said, separately, that I had the prettiest vajayjay that they had ever seen. Uhm.. Thanks.
It's so hard to remember how very tiny he was and correlate that to the energetic toddler he is today.
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