Read part 1.
When I left off, it was 12:30 a.m. on Monday, August, 10, and I had just been admitted to labor and delivery. From there, things get a little crazy and I'm not completely sure as far as timeline because obviously I wasn't exactly watching the clock. I'm also pretty sure I kept my eyes closed most of the time, which is funny to me now because I remember initially being all concerned that I couldn't wear my contacts or my glasses. I do have a general timeline based on some text messages Jordan was sending our parents throughout the night, so I'll include those when I have them.
When I got into the delivery room, they laid me down and hooked me up to an IV so I could get fluids. The nurse asked me if I wanted any pain medication in my IV, and I initially said no. I lasted maybe a half hour before my contractions started to really amp up, and at that point I asked the nurse for some meds. The medication did not dull any actual contraction pain, but it did help me to zone out a bit between contractions. A few times I almost fell asleep, which was awesome.
The nurses would occasionally roll me over to one side or the other to help my dilation, and let me tell you: those hospital gowns really leave nothing to the imagination when you're curled up in a ball on your side. At one point, they checked me, and the nurse said, "You're at a 5-6." I remember feeling sad that I hadn't made very much progress.
At 2:08 a.m. (according to a text Jordan sent his mom), my water broke. I specifically remember lying on my left side and hearing a distinct pop and then feeling a gush of water between my legs. I told Jordan to get the nurse because my water had broke. They checked me, and I was dilated to 6.
The next two and a half hours consisted of completely indescribable pain. There's honestly no point in even attempting to compare it to anything, because even now, less than two weeks later, the pain is fading from my memory and I find myself thinking, Surely it couldn't have been that bad, right? It sounds cliche to say you forget, but thankfully it's true or no one would have more than one child.
At 2:38 a.m., I was a 9. The nurses called me Speedy Gonzalez. Almost the entire time, I had two nurses and a med student in the room coaching me through contractions. There was also the doctor on call (sadly, my own doctor didn't get to deliver because it was a weekend and she wasn't the one on call) and a doctor in residence who came in during the actual pushing phase. I honestly wouldn't have cared if they brought the janitor in as long as he could help get the baby out.
I screamed like in the movies. I clawed up Jordan's arm and dug my thumb nail into his palm. He said he thought I was going to snap his fingers off. At one point I was using my upper body to literally climb hand over hand up and down the railing on the side of the bed.
The nurses kept telling me not to scream. I needed to breathe through contractions, not use my energy yelling, they said.
"I'm trying. I'm really trying," I cried. "I'm so sorry. I'm trying."
"We know," they said. "You're doing so great. You're getting so close."
After dilating from a 6 to a 9 in thirty minutes, I got stuck on 9 cm for over an hour. It was horrible, and I kept asking the doctor if I was going to die. "I think I'm dying," I said. "Do people die from this?"
I wanted so badly to be able to push, but they said the lip of my cervix was still there and they didn't want me to have a bad tear. They would roll me from side to side to help my cervix dilate that last cm while I tried so hard to breathe through contractions and not to yell. At one point they put an oxygen mask on me so the baby could get more air. I hated that thing. It made me feel claustrophobic, and a few times I ripped it off because I felt like I couldn't breathe.
I remember begging them to bring the doctor in so I could push, but they repeatedly told me it wasn't time yet.
Finally, they turned two giant spotlights on in the ceiling and put my legs up in these trough-type things. They weren't stirrups, really, because there was nothing on the end for me to push my legs against. "Okay, it's time to push," the doctor said. At last.
Here's where it might have been helpful to read some of those birthing books because I had no idea what was happening or what I should be doing. This probably sounds dumb, but I didn't realize that the "pushing" part of labor was completely different from the dilating part of labor. Thankfully, the nurses and doctors were extremely helpful in explaining what I needed to do.
In case you're like me and don't know what pushing actually means, let me explain (at least explain what I had to do). When a contraction came, instead of breathing through the contraction and resisting the urge to push, I was supposed to take a giant breath and push as hard as I could while the doctor counted slowly to 10. She said, "Push like you're taking the biggest crap of your life," which is pretty much what it felt like I was doing.
After they counted to 10, I was supposed to immediately take another giant breath and push for 10 more seconds. I did four rounds of the deep breath/push for 10 seconds before the contraction ended and I could take a break. I literally thought my head was going to explode, which sounds insane now, but at the time I seriously thought my head might actually bust open.
When I finally dilated enough and was told I could start pushing, I was so relieved. I naively imagined that I would just need to push a few times and the baby would come out. That's how it looks in the movies, anyway. And the movies are always realistic.
"How long will I have to push?" I asked the nurse.
"For first babies, it could be an hour or more," she said.
All I could do was stare at her in horror.
"An hour?"
"Sometimes."
I almost called for a c-section right then and there.
"I can't do this," I said. "I can't. I'm going to die."
"No you're not," everyone replied. "You made it this far. You can do it."
Jordan squeezed my hand. "You're doing so great. I'm so proud of you. I love you."
I pushed for an hour.
I kept asking the doctor if they could see her, if I was close. I was making progress with every push, but it was slow. The problem was that she was face up instead of facedown, and instead of her head facing straight ahead, it was turned completely to the side. Later, the doctor told me that if she had been in the correct birthing position, I probably would have only had to push for 20 minutes or so.
Every time I pushed, she would come farther down the birth canal, but when I stopped pushing she would go back up. One step forward, two steps back. It was so discouraging. I don't know how long I had been pushing, but eventually I asked the doctor if there was something she could do to help me.
"I can't keep pushing only to have her go back up," I said. "You have to help me."
"We can use the vacuum," she said. "I just have to warn you that there are risks. If we pull too hard, it could cause brain hemorrhaging. We won't pull too hard," she continued. "But I have to tell you the risks."
"Fine," I said. "Just get it." I was scared, but what choice did I have? She wasn't coming, and I couldn't keep pushing like that.
After they got the vacuum, things progressed much better. The doctor pulled when I pushed, and eventually they told me they could see her head. Her heart rate was dropping some, and I knew I needed to get her out quick. "I know you've been pushing hard," the doctor said. "But I need you to give everything you've got to this next contraction. Let's have a baby."
It was around this time that I felt more than heard a commotion to my right. A nurse was kneeling down beside the bed, asking Jordan if he was okay.
"What's going on?" I asked. "Is Jordan okay?"
"He's fine. Don't worry about it," the nurse said. "He just got lightheaded. You need to focus on pushing."
What happened, I found out later, was that Jordan got faint and sat right down on the floor and put his head between his knees. He hadn't eaten since supper at our house the night before, he'd been standing by my side for hours watching me scream in pain, and he said every time the doctor leaned back from me, she was covered up to her elbows in blood. He said he remembers thinking, "That's my wife's blood" and feeling faint. Obviously it's hard for us to labor, but it's hard on our guys too.
Meanwhile, I was told to push as hard as I had ever pushed in my life. During the first round of pushes, nothing happened. I was starting to freak out by this point about her heart rate dropping and knew I had to push her out this time. All that work and a c-section? No thanks.
Another contraction came, and I pushed. Jordan had stood up by this point. He said he would have hated himself if he missed our little girl being born. The nurses didn't count for me, and I didn't do the breathe/push thing I had been doing for the past hour. They didn't tell me to wait after the head came out to get the shoulders either; I just pushed and pushed until I heard a popping, slurping sound and felt her slide out.
It was 4:46 a.m.
"Is she okay?" I said. "Is there anything wrong with her?"
"She's perfect," they said and handed her over to me so she could lie on my chest.
"Look, Jordan," I said. "Can you believe it?"
"I know," he said. "You did it. She's beautiful."
It took a good minute or two for the cord to stop pulsing. Then Jordan cut the cord, and they let me lie there holding R while they stitched me up. They must have numbed me down there, because I remember being surprised that it wasn't hurting.
"So," I said to the doctor, "when she came out I heard a popping sound. Is that what it sounds like when a baby comes out?"
She shook her head and gave me a pitying look. "Um... no. That was the sound of your vagina ripping... Sorry."
OH OKAY NEVER MIND.
Jordan's and my parents had been outside in the waiting room since 3:30, so after the doctor stitched me up and turned off the spotlights and I put my legs down (they didn't stop shaking for a while), they snuck into the room to say hello. My mom was the first to come over, and I'm so glad my sister captured this precious moment.
After everyone left, it was just Jordan and I and our baby. They got Jordan some crackers and juice, and he immediately fell asleep. Baby R was swaddled up right next to my bed, and I couldn't stop peeking over the side to look at her. I grabbed my camera on the way to the bathroom and took this picture of them sleeping. (Going to the bathroom after labor is a whole other story that probably isn't blog appropriate. Or anyone appropriate, really. We'll just leave it at that.)
We slept in the room for I don't know how long. Eventually a nurse came in and asked if I felt okay enough to walk down to a new room so we could clear the labor and delivery room. It was the slowest walk of my life, but I made it, pushing R in the bassinet. We stayed in the hospital on Monday day and Monday night and were discharged on Tuesday evening at 5:00.
Our families and a few friends came to see us in the hospital, and it felt surreal that I was actually the one being visited. I couldn't believe I had just had a baby.
The overwhelming feeling of love that everyone talks about didn't come right away. Initially, I was just so happy to be done with labor. Nothing I'd ever done had been so emotionally and physically painful.
But later, when we were in the recovery room, I had gotten my DSLR out to take a few pictures of R. Babies of course don't know what faces they're making, and I was taking shot after shot of her little mouth and cheeks and eyes.
And then, I saw it.
A flash of her daddy's dimples.
It was him I saw in her sweet face, and I cried. That was the moment I knew what they meant when they said my heart would never be the same. The moment I realized it really was all worth it.
That was the moment I fell in love.