This post is long and a little choppy...forgive me, it was partially written while trying to feed my sweet little prince! It also may fall under the category of "Too Much Information." (Surprise, surprise!)
It's hard for me to believe it was only two weeks ago today that I walked into my doctor's office having contractions. Has it really already been two weeks? And at the same time, why is it that I can hardly remember what life was like before William arrived?
When my water broke that morning at 6:25, I had no idea it would be nearly 24 hours before I'd get to meet my little prince. I'd had such an easy, pleasant pregnancy that I just assumed the delivery would go smoothly as well. And it did, for the most part. I passed the time that morning lying in bed, clocking my contractions on my Blackberry, watching back to back taped episodes of "Friends." When it got to the point that I simply couldn't bear it any more, I placed the phone call to my doctor, as I'd been instructed.
Here's the thing, though. Sometimes, I'm just too darn polite. And I definitely have a bad habit of smiling too much. I can also be a little macho sometimes. Despite the fact that I'd been having contractions for the past five hours and they had indeed started to become unbearable, my doctor's office asked me to come in rather than head straight to the hospital. Somehow my voice didn't convey the pain I was feeling. I was too cheerful, I suspect.
Boston has a lot of potholes. That car ride was a bit like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, but we got there.
A word about one's water breaking. Mine not only broke, but sort of kept on a'flowin'. I began referring to myself as the Leaky Cauldron. If I could've gotten my hands on an adult diaper (or ten) at that moment, believe me I would've pulled one on.
It was confirmed. I was in labor (no shit, Sherlock!), enough to head over to the hospital. My midwife hugged me and wished me luck, and I was on my leaky way. Another bumpy car ride later, we arrived at Beth Israel, where I encountered a bit of miscommunication (after being asked to fill out a lot of paperwork, they also hadn't gotten the message that I was in active labor and much to my horror wanted me to capture some of that leaky cauldron smutz onto an impossibly tiny glass plate to confirm that my water had broken. All the while I was having nasty contractions every four minutes.) Thankfully, miraculously, soon the confusion had been cleared up and I was in a hospital bed, dry, wearing not quite an adult diaper, but a huge, glorious maxi pad.
After that, things went extremely smoothly. I held out as long as I could before asking for the epidural, and once I got it, all was right with the world. "It's complicated" was on television, the pain was gone, my mother came in to kiss me, and I told her I was going to have my baby on her birthday after all. Oh, how wondrous that epidural was, after enduring so much pain! I'd been trying all those hours to be a lady (ordinarily I have a terrible mouth but that day I was using phrases like "son of a B," and "Jeez Louise"). One resident even told me, during a contraction, that I looked "Zen." Guess all those years of acting classes finally paid off.
The doctor told me I'd have to wait until I was ten centimeters dilated before I could start to push. She predicted I'd maybe be at four centimeters the next time she returned, but I had already progressed to eight! The end was near. Things were going so quickly and smoothly! It was right at this point that I uttered the words that would come back to bite me in the ass several hours later:
"Well, I guess the hard part is over!"
Tee hee. Well? My pain was gone, and how hard could pushing be, if I couldn't feel any pain? I even had Hubby take a picture of me giving the thumbs up sign to post on Facebook.
Eight centimeters became ten, and I was finally ready to push. It was 11:30 pm...I still had a half hour before my mom's birthday was over. How long could this take, anyways? (Of course, how was I to know I'd be pushing for over two hours?)
I pushed until I was certain I was going to burst a blood vessel in my head, but for whatever reason my baby wasn't budging. I began to doubt I'd be meeting my baby on my mother's birthday, which she assured me was perfectly okay with her.
Push! Incidentally, have you heard about women pooping on the hospital stretcher while pushing during labor? I'd heard about it, and had casually wondered if I'd be one of them. The thing was, all of my contractions seemed to be coming straight from my ass. The nurse and doctor told me to get over it, they see this sort of thing every day, yadda yadda yadda.
Truly, I would be lying if I said I pooped once, because it kind of seemed like I was pooping with each contraction! For a neat freak like myself, this was the stuff nightmares were made of. But what could I do?
A long time later, they decided to give me something to speed along the process, pertosin. What I hadn't realized was this was going to make me start to feel every contraction as if the epidural had never even been administered. Ouchie!
Push! Every two minutes I pushed three times, to a count of ten. Every two minutes that poor nurse had to clean up my crap. And still no baby. When I eventually told them I could feel every contraction, and that I was in pain, they told me to use it to push against. When the anestesiologist came in and recommended they give me a stronger dose in my epidural drip, they told her to wait.
Ouchie! The sweet doctor told me she wouldn't let me push longer than three hours, and planted the seed in my head that I may have to have a Caesarian. Yikes.
More time passed. I'd been pushing and in serious pain for over two hours, and the baby's head just wasn't coming down any lower. He was trying to make his way out of there, I could tell, and Lord knows I was trying as well. The doctor told me I was a great pusher, and said the proof was the baby's head was getting cone shaped from all of my efforts, but he just might not be born as we'd planned. She told me to push for another hour and we'd take it from there. To which I answered, not long later...wtf?
To make a long story longer...in the end, all that pushing was getting us nowhere. I needed to have a C section. I allowed a few fat tears to escape my eyes, the first tears I'd allowed myself since this whole thing began. It was almost five am on Wednesday morning. This was not at all how I'd expected things to unfold!
Everyone was getting down to business, and I suddenly felt forgotten. "Um, I'm still having contractions. Is someone going to do something about that, now that I'm not pushing anymore?" The nurse looked at me and said I could either push against them (ie: crap myself) or breathe. I chose the pooping. Haha!
They wheeled me down the hall into the bright operating room, and all the while I was still experiencing those bastard contractions.
Hubby wasn't immediately allowed into the room, and as I lay there on the table my eyes continued to leak. "What's the matter?," one of anaesthesiologists asked. "You're excited to meet your baby?" "Yes," I answered, "but I think I'm a little afraid." After that, she held my hand. Where was Hubby?
I closed my eyes and gave myself a little pep talk. Just suck it up and do this, Sarah. (As if I had any choice by this point.) Forget expectations and how I thought things were supposed to unfold, because this is how it's turning out. I tried to breath. I tried to visualize a bright white light. I tried...not to poo again.
Then, all of a sudden, Hubby was there, holding my hand. In one of the many classes we'd taken, when they'd asked the partners to say what they were anticipating regarding the birthing process, Hubby had answered, "I just don't want her to have to have a C section, because I may lose my lunch." If he still felt this way, he didn't let me know it. I stared into his blue eyes, not worrying about the tears and looking like a wimp by this point, especially since I noticed his eyes were leaking too. I think we were both just a teensy bit scared.
And then there were three. Quickly, so quickly I could scarcely believe it, the room was filled with the sound of a baby wailing defiantly. William had arrived! All nine pounds, eight ounces of him! He was twenty-one inches long. No wonder he wasn't coming out of me! The doctor had predicted earlier that he'd maybe be seven, seven and a half pounds. As ginormous as I'd felt these past months, I'm still a small person; nobody could believe such a huge baby had been dwelling inside of me.
I listened anxiously as people shouted things like, "He's gorgeous!" "He's HUGE!" Oh, Reader, I just wanted to see that face!
Hubby went to cut the cord. What was taking so long? Where was my boy? What did he look like? Was he okay? Was he healthy? Soon Hubby was at my side holding our son. "Is he cute?" I whispered, through my tears. "Yeah, he's beautiful," Hubby answered. I tried to get a peek at his little face, but the angle made it difficult. Oh, how I'd been waiting to see that face! And to hold him!
"That wasn't so bad!" I said to the anesthesiologist as they sewed me back up. I could feel pressure on my stomach, like someone was rearranging my insides (which they probably were), but honestly having a C section wasn't terrible like I'd expected. Sort of like the contractions, once it was over with, I forgot all about it. It was no big whoop. I guess this is why people continue to have babies.
They wheeled me into another room, and everything felt like it was spinning. I was all drugged up, but didn't realize it at the time. And then, after what seemed like an eternity...William Daniel was finally in my arms, and my world stood still.
William Daniel was in my arms, and suddenly I knew I would relive the past 24 hours over again tomorrow, in a heartbeat, because he was so so very worth every second of it.
If the labor was rocky, recovery and everything afterwards has been...well, I've been in Heaven.
Will, that sweet little baby boy, is truly more miraculous and gorgeous than anything I could ever have dreamed up. I can't believe he came from me. I can't get enough of him. And as for those rare moments when he isn't in my arms, if I close my eyes for a minute to get some rest, for example, all I can see are his two blue, alert eyes, bordered by impossibly long eyelashes, a pouty little mouth, that perfect nose, his sweet little chin, and the chins underneath that go on for days...
My heart belongs to William. This new mother is utterly and hopelessly in love. Time to go cuddle my little prince. xoxo