The Birth Story

Our baby was due July 17th. On July 2nd I started having contractions. Dayna had me download a contraction timer app on my phone so when the contractions started I was ready. They were fairly inconsistent and I went about my day. Nate kept asking if he needed to come home and I just kept saying—meh stay at work you're only a half hour away; if they get closer then you can bust home. I had gone in to get checked on the 1st and the baby had dropped and I was dilated to a 4. My doctor said let's keep that baby cooking, but just so you know I'm on call this weekend. The night of the 2nd we went to dinner and shopping and the contractions started coming five to seven minutes apart and we thought maybe we were going to have her on the second. Which I was thrilled for (7x2=14 so cleaver right!?!?) But after dinner and an excursion to Second Damn to take some pregnant belly shots to show the baby someday, the contractions stopped. So whatever. Nate said- should I take tomorrow off work? I said—nah if the contractions start again you can come home.

For the last month of pregnancy I had taken to sleeping in our guest bedroom. I had to get up to pee every hour or so and I had some insomnia so I didn't want to wake up Nate by watching tv at all hours of the night. I had a couple contractions that night and I thought my water broke (it looked like I peed my pants) but there were no real contractions the next morning. So I called my doctor and the PA did and ultrasound to make sure the baby had enough amniotic fluid left. Sure enough- my water hadn't broke. Yep that means I peed my pants. Awesome. The PA said- you're not having this baby yet. So I cleaned my house and took and nap and waited for Nate to come home so we could watch the fireworks and go to bed. Our friends the Buttars came over to watch fireworks and so did Nate's parents. Fireworks are what knocked Nate loose so I joked with my neighbors that maybe the fireworks would knock our baby loose. Well they did. About 2 am I started having contractions about 7-15 minutes apart. I had them steady until about 5 am. They were so bad I slept on the couch in between contractions. I didn't want to wake Nate up until I absolutely had to just in case they stopped again. I texted my mom a picture of me all strung out from a night of contractions and told her the baby was coming. (Actual photo below).

By 6:30 the contractions were consistently 5 minutes apart and starting to hurt worse so I woke Nate up and told him this was it. He sprang out of bed and said why didn't you tell me sooner and I said- so you could sleep silly. No point in is both being miserable. He said- should we go to the hospital and I told him I wanted to take a shower first in case I didn't get one for a few days. In the shower the contractions started coming 3-4 minutes apart and I thought- hey if I was already dilated to a 4 and they are this close together we could have this baby by noon! Yay! Ha boy was I wrong. We went to the hospital and checked in and the contractions were coming 2-3 minutes apart and getting stronger. I planned to go for a natural birth and was refusing the epidural. The nurse came in to check me to see how far I was dilated. STILL A 4! Dammit. So we tried all kinds of positions to help with contractions and they gave me an IV. The tech was such an idiot though and couldn't get it in my wrist and put it in my elbow instead. Bad plan. Every time I bent my elbow it stopped the IV drip and set off some alarms. The doctor came in and broke my water saying it would help speed up the process but he warned me it would hurt worse. Meh I said. Quicker is better. Bring it on. There was screaming. Lots of screaming. And swearing. And I puked. Very glamorous I know. At 11:30 they came I to check me. 4.5. Are you kidding me? At this point the contractions were coming every minute or two and lasting about a minute. I tried some narcotic pain killer but it didn't help it just made me forget to breath. Scary. At 12 they checked again. No progress. The doctor suggested that I had stalled because my body couldn't relax. He suggested the epidural. No progress? Give me the epidural. Give it to me now! Now this is the fun part. The anesthesiologist came in to give me the epidural and they had me bend over a pillow (yes I'm still having contractions) and Nate came over to stand in front of me and keep me still and help me through it. As they were swabbing my back and getting ready to poke me Nate says calmly, "I'm going to pass out." I look up at him scream- "catch Nate" and then he passed out. His last conscious thought was to fall backwards so he didn't land on me and risk paralyzing me- which was so loving and great- but bad because behind him was a dresser thing that he was going to bash his head off of and break his neck. When I screamed to grab Nate the anesthesiologist reached his right hand over my shoulder and grabbed Nate by the hand as he passed out and the nurse assisting him jumped around my bed and caught Nate and eased him into a chair. It was hilarious. And scary. When he came around he immediately tried to get up and he was white and green and sickly looking and all three of us told him to lay back down! He asked what happened and why he was laying down. So funny.

It took the epidural a minute to kick in but once it did- oh man. It was amazing. Why I ever wanted to try to do it natural is beyond me. Drugs are amazing. So they gave me a drug to help the contractions be stronger but I couldn't feel them whew!

And by six they checked me and I had finally dilated to a 9. Yay! Time to push? Nope. They suggested waiting an hour to let my body get ready. We figured me what's an hour after waiting all damn day. So we waited. At 7 we started the show. I asked the average push time for a first time mom. The nurse said an hour to and hour and a half. Ok I got this. The nurse half-assed explained how to push and she and Nate held my feet. I can't feel anything so I have no idea if I'm pushing or if I'm pushing right. The first hour goes by. Nothing. The second hour. Nothing. The nurse and Nate lie to me and tell me there is progress. And there is. A little. We can finally see the top of her head. It's covered in black hair. Another half hour of hard pushing, four times instead if three during contractions and the nurse says they are almost ready so the doctor is coming. Now a word about my doctor Barry Noorda- he is a badass. Straight up. He gets pulled over for speeding coming to the hospital to deliver the baby and does not pull over. He drives into the hospital parking lot, gets his insurance and registration and his wallet and tosses them to the cop (he said- I was hoping he wouldn't shoot me) and says- I have to go deliver a baby. If you need to give me a ticket just leave it on my windshield with my wallet. Peace. And he walked inside. (Side note- he didn't get a ticket and his wallet was on his windshield when he left haha) So Dr. Noorda shows up in shorts and flip flops straight up coming from a BBQ and fireworks and delivers the baby after we debate hot dogs and hamburgers being more American. Straight up badass. Now we had planned to have Nate cut the umbilical cord but when Dr Noorda got there he said, ah no wonder it hurt so bad and took so long. The baby was sunny side up and crooked. Seriously her cone head was coming out the side of her head not the top. Ugh. And when she came out she didn't cry. Noorda quickly went into action and cut the cord and passed her off to the nurse who put the baby on oxygen. Nate said how are you and I said fine go to the baby she's not crying! So Nate went to the baby. Noorda then said- ok here comes the easy part. Delivery of the placenta. Except it wasn't easy. At all. It was stuck. They gave me more narcotic (I stopped breathing again) and they pushed and prodded and it wouldn't come out so he had to pull it out. Then it ripped in half. Great. So now they had to scrape out the remaining part. Fantastic. It hurt so bad and that was with the narcotic and the epidural. Nate was freaking out about me and I was freaking out about the baby. But it was ok. I got a couple little stitches and some antibiotics and they brought the baby to me which was great.