I had been waiting and waiting for the arrival of our little man, what I did not realize was that he could arrive in July and not in September as originally planned. So when my water broke on July 29th with my due date a little over 6 weeks away, I should have been terrified. But I wasn’t. A calm rushed over me knowing that this was it. I’m not sure if the calm comes from wanting to meet my sweet baby or the need to no longer be pregnant, but I just wanted to get to the hospital and move things along.
Monday:
Life amazes me how everything is connected. On Monday night {July 28th} I rushed my husband around to put the waterproof mattress pad cover on our bed to protect the mattress in case my water broke while in bed – about 24 hours later just that happened, in bed.
Tuesday:
I felt not right all day on Tuesday {July 29th} and headed home early from work to lie down…a few hours later, I shot out of bed like a rocket due to a large gush of warm water - my water had broke. Somehow, super crazy and anxious me, doesn’t panic. I do run across the house without pants on at this point, to grab paper towels and notice my husband pulling in the driveway. I stand in our bedroom which can be viewed as you walk in the front door, and give him the news as he enters. I then phone the doctors office to have the on-call midwife contact me to discuss next steps. At this point I don’t see my husband for awhile (later to find out he had a little panic attack in the living room) while I am running around grabbing last minute things for the hospital in case we need to head over there, which we find out minutes later that is exactly where we are headed.
At the hospital, the lady at reception tells me to have a seat which is semi impossible due to my pants being soaked through like I just jumped in a pool, yet necessary due to the contractions that just started up on the drive over. After waiting for a bit we head to the triage area (not to be mistaken with the pretty maternity ward area) where they check everything out and we hear the news that we will be having this baby in the next few hours.
The contractions progressively start to get worse and worse and I now can say I have felt the worst possibly pain imaginable. The worst part about contractions is that there is always another one coming. All my experiences with pain up until this point did nothing to prepare me for this experience. I kept trying to stand up during contractions because the pain is so intense that you feel like you have to do something, anything to try to make the pain go away and lying there definitely does not work.
The Epidural:
After about 2 hours, the anesthesiologist comes in to give me the epidural. The needle had nothing on the pain I was feeling. If you told me an epidural involved walking on hot coals I would have pranced across those coals with a smile if it meant I would no longer feel the relentless contractions.
After the epidural I am instructed to lie on my side (not my back) until its time to push – so get some sleep – which we do because there isn’t much else you can do lying on your side and paralyzed from the waist down. I keep thinking that normal me would be freaking out right now because I am stuck on my side just laying there and can’t get up and walk around. The lack of control would normally cause intense anxiety for someone like me, but all I felt was calm.
I don’t remember even being scared once, or understanding the magnitude of delivering a premature baby 6 weeks before his due date. They mentioned that the NICU team was standing by for his arrival to check him out. I couldn’t even process that my baby could be in the NICU. The whole labor was focused on getting the baby out of me, not one thought about after the delivery even entered my mind – it was like my mind couldn’t handle that part of this journey yet.
Wednesday (Push Day):
Then at 4:30am on Wednesday {July 30th} I wake up my husband and I tell him to get the midwife and tell her I’m ready to push. So this is the hard part – you are supposed to push every time you have a contraction but you can’t feel the contractions due to the epidural – so you end up just pushing when you think you should. Even though the monitor should show when you are having a contraction, it is not so accurate so the nurses and midwife are looking at me to tell them when I am having a contraction all the while I am looking at them to tell me – it’s a mess. The nurse tries to nicely instruct me how to push during each contraction, but is about 3 seconds too late in her instructions which frustrates me to no end and I remember saying "please do not instruct me how to push" which I am sure did not come out too nice at the time, but I got my point across, because that nurse is pretty quiet for the rest of the delivery. So I push on my back, on my side, legs in the air, legs down, legs at my chest, I am all over the bed. Nothing matters anymore except getting this baby out – whether you shaved your legs or painted your toenails, nobody cares – especially you. You just want to have this baby. You also for those few hours and even days post partum have zero shame. You don’t care who comes in the room and what they see – it’s like your brain can no longer process the feeling of shame. All the while my husband is by my side with the sole job of feeding me ice chips after every single contraction. Every time I stop pushing I look at him and say "ice chips" he looks at me confused, then I say "ice chips" much louder and he shovels them in my mouth. I later come to find out that my speech was pretty slurred and he couldn't understand me half the time, also I can't imaging what was going on in his head during the delivery.
2 hours of pushing, yelling at one nurse, and a few cups of ice chips later, my little man finally arrives and is whisked to the corner of the room. At this point I am sobbing which goes on for about 20 minutes. The entire experience coming to an end is so draining that I needed to have a good cry, which was more like a sob fest. I then get to hold him for what feels like less than a second and he is gone with my husband to the NICU. After being stitched and cleaned up by the nurses and midwife there is this crazy period of time where everyone leaves and I am alone. The one thing I thought I would never be after having this baby was sitting in a hospital room by myself. It was a very surreal moment. My husband then comes back to the room holding our sweet baby’s first photo (shown below) and I burst into tears. There is nothing more amazing than that little face, regardless of the tubes and machines he is hooked up to, he is ours, he is our Mr. Perfect.
your very first photo...
