The Waiting Game

May 17th I was supposed to be working while my colleagues were at commencement. Instead, I was sitting in a hospital bed waiting on the baby to arrive. The day went by very quickly. We were in a room by 10:30 a.m. or so and my mom arrived soon after that. I had a fabulous nurse named Denise who spent the entire day with us. I told her I wanted to use the exercise ball and practice some of the techniques we learned in prepared childbirth class. She asked if I wanted any pain medication or an epidural and I said I would go ahead and try some medicine because the contractions were hurting and I had been dealing with them for almost 12 hours at that point.

I got my IV with some pain meds (they didn't really help my pain, just made me feel drunk...I pretended I was having some margaritas at Cheddars). After about 30 minutes and a text from my friend Katie who has 3 kids that said "Get your epidural now!" I decided to go for the epidural so I could have some relief. EPIDURALS are the best!! The anesthesiologist was awesome...he kept me laughing the entire time (which was a little rough since I had to remain completely still while he put the needle in). Denise told me that it could make my blood pressure drop and I was worried because I have a low blood pressure anyway.

Our friend, Travis, stopped by because his wife, Jessica, and his newborn son, Toby, were being released the day we were being admitted. While he was there the nurse kept trying to get a blood pressure reading on me and wasn't having any luck, she even tried my leg. The next thing I knew nurses and doctors were running into the room and I had an oxygen mask on. I was crying and looking at mom and Kip trying to figure out what was happening. The anesthesiologist came back in put medicine in my epidural to increase my heart rate and made a joke about how his epidurals don't do that to people. Apparently my blood pressure had dropped really low and the baby's heart rate had as well. Once we got the medicine we were both fine.

I spent most of the day/night watching tv (HGTV, The Cosby Show, Wheel of Fortune, and Shark Tank are what I remember). Dad and Stephanie came later in the day and so did Gerald, Sylvia, and Cheri. I got on the internet and posted updates on Facebook and just hung out...I had to ask if I was having contractions (like I said, epidurals are the best).

Labor and delivery was sooo busy that day (I think they had 12 births). At one point I had to wait 3 hours for the doctor to come check my progress because she was doing a c-section on someone. At that point I was fully dilated and effaced. Denise said I could either labor down (just wait for awhile) or start pushing. I chose to labor down, but after awhile we realized that unless I started to push there was no way the baby was coming before Denise left at 11. So we did some pushing and my contractions got farther apart. I ended up pushing for about 2 hours and unfortunately Denise had to go home.

I still remember the new nurse coming in and asking if we were watching the tv because she wanted to turn it off. Kip had been focused on the tv because he "didn't want to watch the business end" of the delivery. We told her we had to leave the tv on and Kip continued to watch tv during the pushing. He and mom were in the room. At one point mom had to sit down and drink a Coke because she felt like she was going to pass out. So, in between pushes I was checking on mom to make sure she was ok. At least she didn't pass out and was back up and able to see the delivery. Kip was wonderful, he kept me breathing the entire time. Labor is definitely painful (even with an epidural) but I think mine went very well.