On Sept. 21st ...

(Warning: For journaling purposes, this post has a lot of labor details! If you don't want to read them, then just scroll down to the pictures.)

Monday, Sept. 21st, I was lying in bed awake. It was about 3 a.m. I was half awake, thinking of all the things that I needed to get done that week. I had just finished my last official day of work the day before. I had decided to finish working 2 weeks before my due date. I thought that would give me plenty of time to get all of the last minute things done before the baby came. I was planning out my week. I had a lot to do.

I was going to:

• get my hair done on Tuesday
• go shopping for and buy a dresser for the babies room
• get a pedicure
• put away all of our files in our new filing cabinet
• finish organizing our living room after just rearranging the furniture
• write all the thank you notes from our baby showers
• update the blog so that I would be caught up and ready to post about the baby
• finalize everything for the primary program
• finish planning the sharing time that I was supposed to do that upcoming Sunday
• clean out the freezer and restock it with prepared frozen meals (extremely wishful thinking)
• pack our bag for the hospital
• Go to the L.A. County Fair (something I have always wanted to do since moving here)
• meet with the new swim coach that is covering my groups for me while I am gone
• figure out what to name the baby
• go through all of the baby supplies and organize everything
• finish buying all of the last minute items we need for the baby
• do laundry
• and most importantly ... sleep, sleep, and sleep some more.

While I was lying there thinking of all of these things ... my water broke.

Are. you. kidding me.

I laid there for a minute in complete shock. This wasn't supposed to be happening. I still had 2 weeks left. I wanted those 2 weeks. I needed those 2 weeks. But it was happening. I remember asking my doctor "what if my water breaks and I don't realize it." I now understand the crazy look he gave me in response. "You will know it." I knew it. In our labor class they told us that the water breaks in only 10% of births. Not a statistic I wanted to be a part of. But there I was, lying in bed, with my water broken. I leaned over to Andrew who was sleeping peacefully (and deeply), "Hey... hey .... HEY! My water just broke!" I gave him a couple of seconds for him to process what I said and then I told him that we needed to get up and go to the hospital.

I got up and was quickly grabbing all of the things that I thought we might need. (Remember that list of things I was going to do this week? Packing the hospital bag was one of those things.) I came back in the room and Andrew was taking a shower. Hmmm... okay, I guess we aren't in that big of a hurry. But then the contractions started. I had been having braxton-hicks contractions for a few weeks. They weren't that bad. These, well, they were bad. They were more intense than anything I had felt up to that point. The first two were 5 minutes apart, then 4 minutes, then 3 minutes, then they settled at 2 minutes apart. I decided I should eat something, but could only force down half of a granola bar. By the time we were ready to go, I was in so much pain I didn't even want to sit down in the car. I told him that I was going to walk there, but he made me get in the car. We put in my "Labor CD" that my friend Brittany had made for me and we quickly drove to the hospital.

We got to the hospital around 4:30. We checked in to triage and I found out that I was dilated to a 4. The contractions were getting stronger and more intense. They checked me in and we got settled in our room. Our nurse then started going through a huge stack of paper work that we needed to fill out. I was getting extremely annoyed by this paper work and the questions they kept asking me. Who do you think I want to be responsible to make decisions for me? Probably my husband, the only person that I brought to the hospital with me! They also made me sign a bunch of papers, not that my signature was legible at that point. I know that this stuff was required, but in the middle of intense labor I was not very accommodating. As the contractions continued I was trying to remain calm and remember all of the things that we had learned in our labor class. I tried to remember all of my "favorite" positions that were the most relaxing. The problem was that most of those involved sitting down, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. I then started getting really sick. Luckily I had only eaten half of the granola bar.

Then as I was hunched over in the bathroom, feeling like I might possibly die, the nurse came in and said "okay, you have to make a decision right now. The anesthesiologist has back to back surgeries all day, so if you want an epidural then you have to have it right now." Uh ... this wasn't the plan. I didn't want to be forced into this decision. For various reasons I wanted to wait until I was dilated to at least a 6 before I even thought about the epidural. I asked the nurse if she would check me and she said that she wouldn't. She didn't think that I was progressing that quickly to warrant being checked again. She then told me that it was 6:00 right then and that he might have time in between his surgeries at 7:30 to do an epidural. So I told her that we would wait until then.

So for the next hour and a half we somehow made it through all the contractions. We had brought a bunch of DVD's to watch, and I had brought all my booklets from labor class to read through. (I have heard so many stories of friends who just slept and watched TV through labor, I wanted to be prepared.) But again, that was the last thing I wanted at that point. Well, just after 7:00 we got a new nurse (thank goodness!) Our new nurse was great. She was a lot nicer and she even agreed to check me. I was dilated to a 7 and almost completely effaced. She said that she then understood while I was in so much pain. I was in "very active" labor and progressing really quickly. I guess at that point I should have decided that because I was going so quickly that I could make it through that last part without the epidural. That would have been the logical decision for me to make. But there was no logic left in me. They said that the anesthesiologist was available and I said "YES!!" So at 7:30 he came in and gave me the epidural. Nobody told me how painful it would be to have to sit through contractions and not move while they stuck a big needle in my back. But I made it through and I thought I would then be pain free and loving it. About 10 minutes after the epidural the nurse started to check the heart beat. She had me move positions and she was adjusting the heart rate monitor on the baby. She had a concerned look on her face and she called someone on her cell phone. This is the conversation I heard: "I need you to come into room 5 .... well, I NEED you to come into room 5 .... You NEED to come in here!" Andrew and I look at each other, a little concerned and the nurse just smiles at us. We then have about 5 nurses, along with my doctor come into the room all at once. They all start talking and moving me and the heart rate monitor and they throw an oxygen mask on my face and nobody says anything to either of us. I finally make eye contact with Dr. Matsuda and I'm sure he saw the panic in my eyes and he finally came over to me and said "The babies heart rate has just slowed down and it was difficult to find it. This is very common after an epidural when everything relaxes. It's okay. They will just keep oxygen on you for the remainder of the labor and delivery. You're doing okay." Okay, that's all you needed to say! THANK YOU! All I could think was "I knew I shouldn't have had the epidural! What have I done??" But everything seemed to calm down after that.

Okay, I have the epidural, now it's time to relax and sleep, right? Well, although the intense pain was gone, I could still feel all of the pressure from every contraction. So unless you count the 60 seconds of rest in between contractions, there was no sleep to be had. It was still pretty uncomfortable, but I was okay with it. I still had complete movement in my legs which I liked as well. Over the next hour the pressure of the contractions became a little greater. And then I just began feeling all of the pressure and I really felt like I needed to push. I waited for a little while, but then I couldn't wait any more. We called the nurse in and while you could tell that she didn't really think that it had progressed to that point, she checked me and said "well, you are definitely ready to have this baby!" She recognized that the epidural was very light at this point and said that I could choose to increase the meds so that I wouldn't feel it, but if I could hold off then it would be better so that I could feel the contractions and know exactly when to push. Since I had felt it the whole time I decided not to increase the epidural. So at 9:15 I began to push.

Andrew was a huge support through everything. He was perfect and did everything I needed. We continued pushing and I think Dr. Matsuda came in just after 10:00. We continued pushing and finally at 10:35, the baby was born. It was the craziest thing I have ever done!! We knew from the ultrasound that his cord was wrapped loosely around his neck. Even though they said this was fairly normal, I was still worried about it. But when his head first came out they were able to quickly unwrap the cord and then he was fine. We quickly knew that he had a great set of lungs as he screamed loudly. I was completely exhausted, but relieved to have him here and that he was healthy.

He weighed in at 6 lbs. 12 oz. The Doctor had predicted that if he went full term he would be about 7 lbs. and if he came early then just under. I guess he was right! Andrew had me so worried that I was going to have a huge baby (his siblings were all big babies) but I had faith that wouldn't happen!
Who says newborns aren't cute?
The proud Dad!
And the exhausted mom.After 7 1/2 hours of crazy intense labor, this is what we got:

So as I was lying there in bed, on Sept. 21st at 3:00 a.m., thinking of all of the things that I needed to get done, I didn't realize that none of that stuff mattered, because today would be one of the happiest days of my life. And it was.