Crazy is the New Normal: The Birth Story

Since I started this blog after Carter was born, I never journaled his birth story. When I was pregnant with him, I kept a physical journal, but taking the time to sit down and write in it was almost painful after exhausting days of teaching while pregnant! I think the last entry in it was the weekend before his birth. So, in honor of his first birthday, I have decided to journal his birth story now, before I forget any more details!

The last week that I was pregnant was miserable. On Sunday night I had horrible Braxton-Hicks that we actually started timing, and caused Christiaan to delay going back to Waco by a few hours. During the night, I had another round of them for a few hours, and began to wonder if I was in labor. But suddenly they stopped altogether. I had my weekly doctor visit on Tuesday afternoon, and I truly thought he would tell me that Carter would be born any day. Instead, he said I was barely dilated or effaced, and that I had a good while left. It was all I could do to keep back the tears when he said "See ya next Tuesday!" I was 38 weeks pregnant at this point, and my due date was March 25th. As miserable as I was, I wanted to wait until the end of the week to go into labor because the following week was spring break. By Friday I could barely walk, and that afternoon at Business Day (an activity the students do once a 6 weeks as reward for good behavior) I just sat on the staircase and observed the activity. I said goodbyes to my kiddos, and told them that I may or may not be back after spring break, and after school headed straight to my favorite nail salon for a pedicure. I begged my usual manicurist to massage the bejesus out of my ankles, as I was desperate to get the ball rolling! She definitely obliged, and fixed up my toes too.

That night we went to Brad and Bri's for dinner with friends. While there, we played with a 3 week old Brycen, and Brianna massaged the pressure points on my ankles for a good while. Now that is a good friend! After a pretty sleepless night(by this point I literally had to sleep sitting almost straight up, propped by pillows and blankets) Christiaan and I got up and headed to Firewheel shopping center. We ate lunch at Fish City Grill and began walking. The Braxton-Hicks started up in full force and we had to pause at almost every bench along the way to let them pass! I am sure that I was getting some crazy looks from people thinking I was about to pop out a kid in the middle of the place!

After almost an hour of walking, we headed to Rockwall because I had a hair appointment. In a fit of raging pregnancy hormones, I demanded that Mindy chop off my hair short, which had grown pretty long after all those prenatal vitamins! Note to self: Do not get haircuts more than trims while pregnant. I regretted it the next week. After my appointment we went for yet another walk, this time just around the neighborhood. I was moving so slowly that even though we only walked about two blocks, it took close to an hour! When we got back my mom told us to slow down, because I had to wait until noon the next day to go into labor because they had no Plan B for the church service. Then we went to eat with my parents at Genghis Grill.

I normally am not a fan of spicy foods, but I loaded my bowl this time with the hottest spices I could take! Again, more scolding from Mom. While we were there, I was texting back and forth with my friend Emily, who was being induced that night. I was honestly jealous that she knew that by the end of the next day she would not be pregnant anymore, despite the fact that I was so adamant not to be induced.

Christiaan and I stayed up until close to midnight watching TV, and then he went to the den to sleep. I was so uncomfortable and could not get to sleep, so sat in bed watching TV. At around 2, which coincindentally was the time change for spring forward, I got up to go to the bathroom. When I layed back down, I felt some liquid come out. I went back into the bathroom to inspect, and for some reason I just put on new pajama pants and went back to bed. Only, when I layed down again, even more fluid came. I went and told Christiaan that I thought my water had broken, and he grumbled "How do you know?" Hmmm, pretty sure I am not peeing myself! Then I went to tell Mom and Dad, and she shot straight up in bed and said "Steve, you better get a plan B!"

Naturally, most of my bag was not packed. I was panicked as to what to pack, and Christiaan and I were both in a daze. Mom and Dad took showers(yeah, I about had a heart attack!) and off we went. It was around 4:45 or 5 am when I finally got into a room and hooked up to monitors. I wouldn't let them call anyone until I knew for sure my water had broken. Even though it was still coming out. But my nurse finally said, "Honey you aren't going home without a baby!" I was already dilated to a 4, but contractions had not really started yet. At shift change I got a new nurse, and she finished breaking my water and gave me a small dose of pitocin to even the contractions out.

Then BAM! Sweet baby Jesus the PAIN!!! I made it very clear that I did NOT want an epidural, but pretty please could you give me a tylenol, or perhaps a Jaegerbomb even, just to take the edge off?? They ended up giving me a small dose of Demoral at about 7am, and off to nap land I went. Well, for 3-5 minute increments between contractions. I still felt EVERY SINGLE ONE of those. However, it did make time speed by, because by the time he was born about 4 hours had actually passed, and I felt like it had been 30 minutes. Basically I was drunk. Very VERY drunk. I kept my eyes closed most the time to avoid dizziness and pukey feelings, and was no longer able to form more than 3 word sentences. Some things I do remember from this time period:

-I had yet to get Brooke to answer her phone, and I begged someone to find her for me! My aunt Shannon finally reached her and then I was able to calm down and focus on labor.

-it felt like every 5 minutes the nurse was rolling me from one side to another. They told me later it was more like every 30-45 minutes. At the time I couldn't figure out why, but found out later that Carter was face-down, but slightly sideways and they were trying to get him to roll over more

-extreme trapped in the Mojave desert-like thirst, begging for ice water. I was only allowed a few ice chips every so often.

-because I was breathing so hard through my mouth, breathing through the pain, my lips became raw and I requested my Burt's Bee. I was told later that they couldn't find it in my purse, so the next best option?? Boob creme. Seriously. Gross.

-Most of the labor, I was on one side or the other. Either way, I had a death grip on the bedrail and was pushing against it. Apparently my knuckles were turning white, and my mom(or someone) kept prying my hands off the rail, and I couldn't muster the words to say WOULD YOU FREAKING STOP THAT?? I think I remember hearing my aunt finally telling her to leave me alone, that it was the bedrail or someone's hand!

-At some point, closer to the end of labor when the contractions were coming on top of each other, some woman was asking me all these medical history questions, ones that I had answered at least 4 times since being admitted. Since I couldn't even talk, it was all I could do to nod or shake my head, to which my mom would interpret my answer. After she did that several times, the woman said, "Ma'am, I need HER to answer me, not you!" Wrong answer. I rolled over and without even opening my eyes told her not so politely that she needed to wait until I was not in the middle of a contraction to get her answers from me! She promptly left, and let me tell you, she is lucky I never saw what she looks like! And I found out later that she was from anesthesiology, um hello not having an epidural! Please go away!

-I remember hearing things and conversations going on in the room, but the only voices I paid attention to were my mom and Christiaan's and occasionally when Shannon would talk, and only when they got right down beside my head. Otherwise, my whole focus was breathing in and out. I was determined not to be one of those crazy women I see on all my baby shows who scream and cuss and cry and the whole dang hospital can hear.

At some point, I opened my eyes and announced to the room that I needed to push. The nurse asked me not to, and checked and said I was only about a 7. That made me mad, and she told me to push with the next contraction so she could feel what was going on. I obeyed, and she said do not push again, you are a 10 now, and turned around to some guy in there and told him to call Dr. Mathews NOW!!! I couldn't help but to push, and fortunately the doctor swiftly came. I think I only pushed a few more times after that! I remember watching in the mirror(yes, I watched. It helped me push better!) and then someone stepped in front of the mirror and I was trying to look around them, when Dr. Mathews was actually holding Carter up in front of me! He didn't mess around getting outta there!! His cord was wrapped around his neck 3 times! I had been terrified that something would go wrong with the cord, but they tried to convince me it probably had happened during labor when they moved me around so much. I don't buy it though.

It was 10:48 am on March 14th, 2010. Right smack in the middle of church service. Wouldn't you know that MY child's first instructions were directly disobeyed.

His face, arms, and legs were very pale because of the cord issue, but otherwise he was perfect! The baby nurse finally gave him to me and said I could see him for a few minutes but that he needed to go to the nursery to pink up. After a few minutes though, she changed her mind and said he actually was looking good by then.

The rest of the day was a blur, but I remember not being able to get enough of my new man! I didn't want him to leave my side! In fact, the only time he left me the whole hospital stay was when he was circumsized, and I cried the whole 45 minutes he was gone!

So basically, I feel like I was blessed to have such an easy labor, especially since I wanted to forego an epidural. I was very surprised that it happened so quickly, which makes me think that next time will be even faster! I was very proud of myself for not screaming one single time, and for only saying one cuss word. My brother had said that we needed to ask our pastors not to come until the baby had been born, because they were expecting my potty mouth to be in full force! And I am pretty sure that the one cuss word I did say was more out of shock when I was pushing and suddenly realized that he was really about to be there. Pretty good, for a person who gets easily riled up and voices her opinion loudly!

I couldn't have asked for a more fun child. Carter has made our lives so busy and crazy, and even when I am exhausted from chasing after him, I wouldn't trade it for the world! It is hard to imagine our lives without him, and it is hard for me to look at the pictures from when he was born and realize he is not that little baby anymore! He is a big boy now!

Christiaan took this just hours before my water broke!