Well, it’s been about 2 solid months since I’ve last posted, and let me tell you, these last 2 months have been a blur.
Asher James was born on February 6th at 2:13AM, and is the biggest, healthiest, most laid back sweet little boy God could have blessed us with. I prepared, and prepared for his arrival, ready to have a natural birth, but it didn’t exactly go that route.
At 6:00AM, we went to the hospital for our scheduled induction. After all of the paperwork we completed, we geared up for the day that would change our lives forever. 7:30AM came around and they broke my water. We waited, and waited. I was a little over 2CM, and unfortunately no progress had been made. At 9:30AM, the nurses told us that we needed to speed up the labor, so they issued Pitocin.
That Pitocin is a mean beast.
I was on Pitocin with no Epidural from 9:30AM to 3:00PM. During that time, I was focused, ready to approach this head on. We started to walk the halls to get the baby to go down, but the water kept dripping like a huge leaky faucet, and I could not focus, so we headed back in. I asked the nurse for a birthing ball. It’s the one thing I dreamt of having in my labor. I had heard so many wonderful things about how it progressed labor, how it was so comfortable to sit on for your back pain, and it ended up being nothing but a really uncomfortable chair. So much for that.
Up next, we try a hot shower. That was MAGICAL. I could’ve sat in that shower for years. The contractions came and came, each one harder than the next. I never thought I’d be in an ugly hospital shower with my husband hovering over me, buck naked and not giving a hoot, but let me tell you friends– you lose all dignity when you go through labor. The nurses decided they need to check me and I was hoping for at least a 2CM jump… but I was hardly pushing 3CM. After six… read that… SIX hours of hard labor without an epidural, I hardly progressed. At this point, I knew I was in for the long haul. As I sat in the hospital bed, another contraction came on, and finally around 3PM, in the middle of a contraction, I yelled “I can’t do it! I give up! I need an epidural!”
Within 10 minutes, an angel walked through the room – a tall, old man with a brigade of anesthesia. I had never been so relieved to get this epidural. They had asked Chad to leave the room, which is a good thing because he probably would have passed out. Let me tell you, there was no needle big enough that could’ve scared me away at that point. I – Wanted – That – Epidural.
With these epidurals, they put some strange things on your back (gobs of extra strength tape, numbing serum), but the thought of hugging that pillow is all you can think about. That comfy, nice, pillow… and bam, epidural is over.Within minutes, I am numb. Completely numb. And thus we begin the long haul.
The entire time, you lay there in that hospital bed, hoping to progress as quickly as possible so you can meet your little one. I was not so lucky. By 5:30PM, I had progressed to 4CM, and by 8PM, 5CM. We were hoping to have this baby on February 5th, but we slowly realized it wasn’t going to happen. The nurse did say that once you hit 5CM, then things start to speed up, so we were excited to say the least!
11PM rolls around, and we’re at 8CM. Come on… two more centimeters. 12AM, 9CM.
FINALLY. 12:30AM hits, and we see 10CM. But wait, we have to go “back down”, meaning we still have to get the baby to drop lower. Around 1AM, we start to practice push, which I didn’t think we needed. Marissa was our nurse, and I did not quite trust her. I knew if we pushed, I might have that baby right on that table without our doctor. We had about 7 practice pushes and I can hear Chad saying “Is the doctor coming in soon?” and the nurse asking me “did you have a lot of heartburn?” which was code that I was crowning. Ok, Marissa, lets get the doctor in here now!
But… the doctor had other deliveries she had to get to first, which made sense why we were practice pushing. She wanted to kill time, and I just wanted to get this baby out. I was afraid I was going to get too exhausted and not be able to get the baby out. Mind you, I was exhausted from the contractions. A few hours prior, our nurse Marissa kept having to flip us because the babies heartbeat was dropping. After being flipped 4 times, she did not care to check the epidural cord and CLAMPED the epidural cord. During those 2 hours, I kept feeling the contractions, and the anesthesiologist came in and didn’t know why I could feel them. He was going to reinsert the needle, but I had already pushed the epidural button 3x in 20 minutes (your only supposed to push it once every 2 hours).
During that moment, a new nurse came on shift, and asked Marissa if she had checked the epidural cord after flipping me – nope! The new nurse unclamped the cord and *BAM* my entire body was numb with 3x more epidural than needed. Yes, I was not a happy camper!
Anyways, back to the story… The doctor finally makes her grand appearance just before 2AM. She gears up with her gloves, and tells me to start pushing. After 5 pushing sessions (of 3 each), our beautiful baby boy was born at 2:13AM with Daddy being able to say “IT’S A BOY!” in tears. It was the most beautiful moment of my life, and to this day, he is the best thing that has ever happened to us.