prior to labor, I had heard all these awesome stories where people had really short labors. It didn't occur to me until later that their water broke. For them, labor was a couple hours and then the baby was out. None of this waiting at home forever.
On my due date, I went to see my OB. We had the option of getting my membranes swept which basically meant separating the bag of waters from the uterus. We did that and actually also had to go to antenatal testing because there was some slight heart arrhythmia and the OB wanted us to get it checked out. Everything was fine so we went home.
The next morning, Wednesday February 18th, I started having contractions. I think I had contractions before but those were not real. They just felt like one small part was tightening. When I woke up at 7:30am, I started timing my contractions and they were 5 minutes apart, about a minute each, lasting for about an hour. I waited until 10am to call the hospital and they said I could come in if I wanted. I watched Up, had lunch with Stephen and then headed in around 1pm. I was still only 1cm dilated which was the same as the day before. We went home and I watched a lot of episodes of How I Met Your Mother. I took a shower and a bath, but the pain was getting to be a bit much so I skipped dinner and tried to nap. The Prenatal Partners yoga class didn't help me all that much. Stephen tried to encourage different poses and different places to sit, but it all felt pretty crappy. Now I know why when I asked people to compare labor pain to something, they couldn't. It is just pure pain and the consistency and persistence of it is what makes it unbearable. There were times when I thought I would throw up. And I do not get nauseated easily. We went back to the hospital at around 10pm. I had not progressed much to my disappointment and they sent me home again with a shot of morphine to help me sleep. It was a relief. We got home around midnight and I woke up at 4:30am. Compared to the contractions at the start of my labor, these were really super painful. I was sure I wanted to go in. This time I was 7cm dilated! Woohoo!! I was cheering as I was finally admitted! They do not admit you unless you are 4cm dilated.
I had considered not getting an epidural, but considering how painful and long labor already was, I was definitely ready for some relief. I didn't ever think I would need a morphine shot and I got that so when they asked if I wanted an epidural, I was all in. After I got the epidural, I felt a lot better. We even watched Frozen. I was not allowed to eat anything though and I kept thinking what a mistake it was that I had skipped dinner the night before. Then I didn't have breakfast or lunch or dinner that day really. I am not sure if the epidural had slowed things down, but I was not progressing even though they had broken my water. In the afternoon, they gave me some Pitocin to get my contractions going again. Also by this time, the epidural was not total numbness and loss of control. I would feel my legs and could feel contractions, though they were not as painful.
At around 4:30pm, I was fully dilated so could start pushing. We tried some different positions. We started with the birthing bar, using the vertical supports to push against with my feet and then a sheet to pull back on. We also tried squatting but the nurse didn't recommend it because of edema. We also tried side curled. We ended up in a position where I was on my back, holding my knees up, curling over. At around 8:00pm, baby was born!! I was super relieved. When they broke my water earlier in the day, there was a little bit of poo in the water, so when baby came out, all I could see was her back and the dark umbilical cord. They whisked her off to get cleaned. They worked on getting the placenta out and when that came out, I thought it was all over. Turns out it wasn't! I had some postpartum bleeding/hemorrhaging due to uterine atony so the two doctors were trying to massage my uterus into contracting. They even brought in a third doctor to try as well. I felt like I was getting beat up! I also got a shot of hemabate. After a little while, they were able to successfully stop the bleeding so then I finally got to hold baby!
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