My apologies for the hiatus. I guess as you can imagine, a lot has happened since I last updated on January 24th.
At my next doctors appointment my Doctor determined that I was 4 cm dilated and if I were to have Braxton Hicks contractions for longer than an hour I was to report to the hospital because he knew that if I was already dilated to 4 then they wouldn’t send me home as they did about 3 times previously. We both really wanted things to progress since he was to be out of town from February 8-11th. So the next day, my husband, Andy and I walked around for about 2 hours and I started contracting, irregularly but it went on for two hours. Of course by the time we got to the hospital and all the walking was done they had slowed and to top it all off my nurse was convinced that I was only MAYBE 3 cm dilated and that my doctor was “being very generous by saying I was at 4.” This nurse was quite the expert, telling me that I wasn’t relaxing and proceeded to very sternly and in my face repeat, “You aren’t relaxing, RELAX!!” Two things are wrong with this scenario. 1. I have scoliosis, for those of you who don’t know that means I have curvature of the spine that was severe enough that I required surgery when I was 14 years old. I have a series of titanium rods that go down the entire length of the spine. As a result my shoulders carry majority of my tension and are not even. They only go down so far and this nurse would not accept this fact. 2. I don’t know who can relax with someone in there face telling them to relax and that they are not relaxed. So, at this point I am totally annoyed. My doctor came in and checked me out while the nurse hovered over his shoulder. He told her to give it another hour but I knew it wasn’t happening that day.
The following week I missed my appointment right before he left for his 4 day trip, so I don’t know where I was at before that. On February the 8th still pregnant and wanting it to be over I continued to walk and even did a little prenatal yoga. I was with my mother walking around Sam’s Club, which by the way is the best place for a pregnant woman to go. Walking and free food! It was around 2 o’clock in the afternoon when I noticed I was leaking fluids. I called my husband and told him the good news! It was at this point that we both decided to wait to go in to the hospital. It was our plan to do majority of laboring at home anyway and at that point, labor had not started yet. I had a slow leak all night long and right before we went to sleep I had a little conversation with the child inside of me. I pleaded with her not to make her appearance too quickly as I wanted to get a full nights sleep before having to labor for god knows how long.
Apparently, someone did not get the memo. I woke up at 1:30 am on February 9th with some real contractions and I’m talking REAL! You don’t know until you’ve experienced them but there is a HUGE difference between B.H. contractions and real contractions. Just to be sure and still recovering from being sent home so many times I got into the shower. Which is supposed stop false labor. I assumed that since this was my first baby and since contractions just started that I was going to be in labor for hours upon hours. The hot shower did not do much to bring me relief and it sure didn’t stop any contractions; by the end of my shower I was having them every 4 minutes. My husband was running around like a chicken with his head cut off asking me every couple minutes if I really thought this was the real thing. I told him, “We need to leave, NOW!” It was all very dramatic.
We got into the car and to our horror there was hardly any gas and we had to stop to get some. This was the longest 4 mile car ride of my life! When we got into the hospital everybody knew I was in true labor, there was no questioning it this time. I knew things were going to go well when they wheeled me into the room I wanted. (It’s pretty bad when you are so familiar with the birthing center that you have a room preference.) And thankfully I did not have the “YOU AREN’T RELAXING” nurse. I had a very nice nurse who could tell that I was in some serious pain and despite my best efforts with hypnobirthing, one mention about my “happy place” got my husband a nasty look and a mumble from under my breath. In my contraction stooper, I did have the nurse contact the anesthesiologist about an epidural. Thankfully, due to my rods this was not even an option. I had a plan, I wanted to do it as naturally as possible but lying on your back is not conducive to easing the pains of labor. I ended up caving to the offer of meds. They gave me the smallest dose of Stadol and my nurse assured me that since I was already dilated to 6 upon arrival and quickly jumped to 8 that there would not be time for my body to metabolize the drug and pass to my baby. It did nothing for my pain but did seem to make me drowsy which I happily welcomed being that it was 5 o’clock in the morning.
The only relief I felt was from the counter pressure techniques that my doula had taught us. I hadn’t been there very long at all before I got the urge to push. Everyone kept telling me not to, that it wasn’t time yet as if this was some sort of option. When your body is ready to push it just does it for you, trust me. My nurse checked me again and I was already dilated to 9 with a lip, which I guess means that I was basically dilated to 10 and just waiting for the on-call doctor who was in complete denial that this first time mother was ready to deliver at laboring for a total of 4 hours. She finally arrived and surprisingly exclaimed, “ok, let’s push!” With about 4 good pushes Madelyn Sunshine Johnson was born at 5:15 am weighing a very reasonable 6lbs. 7oz. 19 1/2 in. long. My sweet husband who had been cheering me on the entire time turned to me and said, “You did it!” I was in shock for about 2 hours afterward. They put her on my chest and all I could do was stare at her. Andy cut her cord and we nursed her right away.
The next day we had a barrage of visitors, probably more than the hospital had ever seen. She was highly anticipated by many. The first grandchild for both my parents and Andy’s dad and second grandchild but first girl for Andy’s mother.
The little peanut will be one month old on Saturday and this whole month has been quite a whirlwind. I still can’t believe she’s here. She’s perfect and hardly ever cries and I’m fairly certain she’s nearly doubled her birth weight. Maybe she’s taken it from me because I am already down 20 pounds. She has Andy’s body and her face is a good combination between him and I and she has light brown hair which gets lighter and lighter everyday. Andy is blonde and i was blonde for quite awhile.
Thanks for reading, until next time.
jenbjohnson 