Aimee part 2

So I guess I better finish this story, since I go back to work in just TWO DAYS!! Holy cow, where did the time go?!

Disclaimer: this is reeeeeaaallly long.

So I left my appointment with Robin extremely frustrated and angry, and feeling disrespected. After crying on the phone to both Jason and my mom, I ended up calling off work. That was probably the best decision I could have made that day. I'm fairly convinced that I would've gone into labor that night if I had gone to work, and things would have drug out a whole lot longer than they did. I ended up meeting with my mom and her friend/boss/partner (long story) Sandy, and going to the farmer's market for a couple hours, then came home and made Jason go for a long walk with Logan and I.

I barely looked pregnant from the back. If you didn't know I used to have a tiny butt and waist, you wouldn't know it.

Thursday was a long, depressing day. Pretty much nothing happened all day, including me doing anything more strenuous than get off the couch to pee. J got home from work around 4:30, and around 6:30 I started having dull contractions much lower than I had ever experienced before. I didn't say anything at first, because I didn't want him to get all worked up for nothing...but by 11pm I knew it was labor. We both went to bed, and I slept until 4:30am. (at this point they were about 15 minutes apart).

about a week before she was born...waiting patiently for "his" baby

About 6am I called the answering service, and find to my dismay that Robin was the midwife on call.

*seriously??*

So I go back to bed and try to go back to sleep. Woke up again around 9 and called the office, and Lilly tells me Robin is on call until 5pm, but if I can't hold out that long, she will have Dr C (the overseeing OB) personally come to deliver.

To make a looooong, drawn out weekend a lot shorter, Friday and Saturday ended up being a series of walking, bouncing on the ball, and napping as much as I could. I called the midwife Friday night when my contractions were consistently 8 minutes apart but bearable, and she told me to try to sleep and call her in the morning. Called again Saturday around 4pm and Tammy told me to go to triage and get checked. Unfortunately I was only 1cm and 99%...not a whole lot of progress from my 36/37w visit...so we were sent home. Ironically, as soon as we left my contractions got 5x worse.

How 90% of Easter weekend was spent...on the ball

Fast-forward to 4:30 Sunday morning, and I am in agony. Jason slept about 3 hours, I dozed between contractions for about 2 hours, and spent the majority of my time either in the shower, sitting backwards on a kitchen chair sucking ice chips, or limping around in circles waiting for the hot water heater to refill. I had kept putting off calling Tammy, because I was terrified that I hadn't progressed and would be sent home again. So I was now in my 58th hour of labor, the tears running down my face with every contraction. J finally convinced me to call her, and I pretty much lost it while I was on the phone with her. I told her I couldn't do it anymore, but I was so afraid I hadn't progressed, and how tired I was, and how the shower wasn't helping at all anymore. She listened, then told me exactly what I needed to hear.
"Come in. I'm already here. We'll check you out, and if you haven't progressed I'll get you something to help you sleep."

So back to triage we went. I thought I was going to rip someones head off when the nurse (same one I had the day before!) told me she was probably going to discharge me because I had only gotten to 2cm. Thankfully Tammy was still in the building, and within 90 minutes of arriving in triage I was admitted, in a room, and talking with Tammy about what she was going to give me. :)

I ended up getting IV fluids and a combination shot of Dilaudid and Benadril in the butt, which had me looping out and not caring about my contractions in about 5 minutes. I remember I texted a couple people to let them know what was going on, though for the life of me I can't remember who other than Monica and Sara from work (it was my weekend to work, and she was working, so she was keeping everyone updated). I sent Jason to the car to get the bags, and called my mom - though again, I have no idea what I talked to her about other than telling her I was having contractions and didn't care. I also remember telling Jason to get a picture of the monitor on my belly.

totally flying high lol

I managed to sleep a couple hours, thank goodness, only waking up when I had to pee or when they needed me to roll over because Aimee's heartrate was being funky from the meds. I also remember waking up around 11 or so and fighting with J for about a half hour for him to go get something to eat (at that point, neither of us had eaten anything since 6pm the day before). Noonish I started feeling the contractions pretty bad again, and asked if I could have something more, because I really did not want to go through that again. Tammy called back and told me to get up and walk the halls, and she would check me when she came in and decide then if I could have something.

So we did a couple laps around the nurse's station,stopping when a contraction hit so I could lean on J, then went back to the room so I could pee. By then Tammy was back and ready to check me, and I was at 7! The monitor and fluids came off at that point, and my IV got taped up so I could go back in the shower. For the next three hours, if they weren't making me lay in bed to check on Aimee (and trying to talk me into letting them break my water), I was in the shower. Jason went back and forth between standing in the bathroom feeding me ice chips, and sitting outside the bathroom door (when the steam got too bad for him to stand it - I'm shocked I didn't scald myself with how hot the shower was) Finally, I hit the same point I was when I had come in (painwise). Tammy poked her head in the bathroom, and found me in tears, again begging for SOMETHING to cut the pain even a little. But nooooo, she sent me back to bed to check me again.

That check revealed I was finally at 9. (it's now 4pm) So Tammy finally talked me into letting her break my water, and then we waited. When the first contraction post break hit, I found out what labor pains REALLY feel like. If I felt like a hot knife was twisting around my groin/lower abdomen before, now it was like ten of them, plus a midget punching me as hard as they can.

To condense 95 minutes of pushing into something that doesn't make me sound like a wimp...I ended up going from my side, to sitting straight up, to hands and knees. I won't like, I fought like hell every time they tried to get me to move. One nurse - Jackie - almost got kicked in the head three or four times. The other one - Tiffany (who I knew from nursing school! [I was so glad she was there!]) - got her hands slapped a couple times when she was holding the monitor against my belly mid-contraction. But once I got on my hands and knees, it got a little easier...especially when someone started putting pressure on my lower back. I did a lot of crying, dry heaving, and begging for pain meds. I kept telling them I wasn't going to push, and in the middle of the sentence my body would take over and start pushing on its own, which was really weird and scary (and cool now that I think back on it). I refused a mirror, though now I think it would've helped to see my progress. Once her head got past my cervix and I felt a little relief, I remember feeling so discouraged because it wasn't over yet. Then the ring of fire...oh my god...I felt like I was splitting down the middle both top and bottom. I already had a hot compress on my bottom, but at that point I yelled for one at the front because I thought I was going to split up all the way up. At that point Tammy had left and Jenn had taken over, though I'm not sure how long it had been since that happened. Once I hit that ring of fire, I let out once good scream, then my brain kicked back in and told me if that pain was ever going to go away, I had to get that baby out NOW. So I finally started pushing for real and in earnest, not relieving the pressure unless I had to move up higher in the bed. They told me not to push unless I was having a contraction, but since I didn't hear any alarms, I knew they wouldn't truly tell me to stop unless Aimee was in distress, and I just kept going. J said later that he could tell I was pushing even if I wasn't making noise because the muscles in my back would ripple and raise up. It only took a couple minutes once I really got into it, and her head was out. Since I was hands and knees, once they suctioned her (it was hard to stop pushing long enough to let them do that!), they didn't touch her until she landed on the footrest behind me. Then they just shooshed her up a little so I could reach her, and helped me roll over and scootch up in bed once I pulled her up into my chest. (I forgot she was still attached to me and tried to pull her a little too high - ouch!)

The next hour is kind of a blur , but it was all the normal baby activity, plus me getting 2 stitches. When J finally got to hold her, I realized I was bleeding...more than what seemed normal. Turns out, since I refused Pit after delivered and hadn't peed in hours (after getting 2 liters of IV fluids), my uterus was refusing to stop bleeding. Jenn had already left, so the OB intern came in and did a uterine sweep (which I swear was worse than the last three days combined!), then ordered a "meso bullet", which was basically a Pit suppository. I also got on the bedpan and peed more than I have in one shot in the last year. After that, things finally slowed down, though the next day I passed a clot/scab almost as big as my fist (which apparently they were expecting, since they didn't rush me off to surgery or anything). Amazingly enough, I had heartburn while I was pushing (just like I did pretty much my entire pregnancy), and it totally disappeared almost the instant she hit the table!

Okay, I think this is long enough...weirdly enough I can't wait to get back into this thing now that life is going back to "normal".