6/26/11 changed my life

8:30am - woke up and took the dogs out for a mile walk

9:30am - woke Eugene up to take a shower and got ready for church

10:00am - about to walk out the door to church, I start getting a little cramp and decide to sit on the couch for a second to make sure it wasn't something more. 10 minutes later I realize that this may be the infamous contractions everyone was telling me about. I decide to time them, why not! Well 30 minutes later I realize that yes, these were most likely contractions and they're 5 minutes apart (I mean what the hell do I know, I've never felt a contraction!). My doctor on Thursday said there were three things that might happen for me to go to the hospital: 1. I would have a bloody show, 2. My water would break, 3. I would feel contractions 5 minutes apart.

Well, my contractions were 5 minutes apart so I decided that I might just have to go to the hospital to figure all this out. Well since I was up since 8:30 I decided I would eat something before I go in, just in case I do deliver and I can't eat anything for the day. Eugene and I ate some breakfast.

11:45am - I called my doctor to tell them I think I'm in labor (OMG I'M IN LABOR?, LABOR what a huge word that I thought I wouldn't have to use for another week or so)

12:00pm - Eugene and I put our bags, pillows, blankets, and most importantly the baby seat into the car and headed over to Labor&Delivery at Northwest Community Hospital.

12:30pm - We got to the hospital and they took all my information and checked me in. They started timing my contractions, I was excited to see if these were real contractions or if this was just cramps that I was feeling (they felt like period cramps by this time). Well lo and behold, they were real contractions so they decided to check my cervix. They checked and I was still just about 4 cm, which means no change from Thursday's doctor appointment. Well they decided to call the doctor and let him know and see what he had to say.

Doctor said that since I have no change that they can observe me for about 2 hours and if there is still no change that I'll have to go home. If there is a change, they'd figure out what they would do. Yes, you read that right.. even if I was to get dilated, if there wasn't that big of a change I would have to go home (WHAT A BUMMER).

Here is the problem behind everything. On Sunday, I was 38 weeks and 3 days. The hospital doesn't do any type of intervention until 39 weeks because from their experience if they do intervention before 39 weeks it usually concludes in a c-section. Because of this they wouldn't break my bag of water that was bulging and ready to pop, they couldn't give me any type of pain medication to ease the labor pains and they couldn't emit me until they were 100% sure I would have the baby without interventions.

2:30pm - They did a cervical check on me to see if there were any changes, turns out I was 5 cm dilated so just a little bit of change but a change nonetheless. By this time, my contractions were pretty painful so I told them there was no way I was going home and that I wouldn't even be able to make it out the door with how much pain I was in. The nurse told me they would call the doctor and see what he wanted to do.

Oh by the way, the doctor was not even a doctor I've ever met. There are two different practices that go through the hospital and take shifts during the weekend. Well of course the weekend I'm went was a weekend that the other practice covers.

3:30pm - Word from the doctor is that I didn't change that much so that they would be able to give me some nubain which would take the "bite" out of the contractions and make me feel tired and "drunk". They then would see if my water would break on its own.

Doctor was finally on his way in and I was now going to be admitted to the hospital.

4:00pm - Now that I was finally admitted and the news of me having a baby on the way settled in just a little bit, I was able to relax and finally text my family that I was officially in labor.

4:30pm - The nubain wasn't doing too much for me so I asked them if I could have the epidural, especially since I was going into full on labor and I didn't know how I would be able to handle it.

5:00pm - Got my epidural and a nurse came in to break my water. They checked my cervix and I was at about 6-7 cm dilated and labor was about to really hit hard since my bag of water was now broken. Thank goodness my epidural was in and I wouldn't have to feel much pain.

5:30pm - My mom and brother made it to the hospital and kept me company while I tried to "relax" and get myself prepared for the pushing that was going to come in the future (near future if I had any clue).

6:20pm - Doctor finally comes in and introduces himself to us. He checks my cervix and says that it's time to push. I hit 10 cm dilated and 100% effaced in just a little over an hour. Doctor said he would be back since he needed to change. The doctor reminded me that I needed to be ready to push for about 1-3 hours on average for a first time mom and if I pushed hard, I would be able to hopefully push for just an hour.

6:30pm - I started to push with my nurse and she said that they would get another nurse to also be in the delivery room with us. Pushing was HARD and I had no clue if I was doing it correctly or if I wasn't really pushing anything at all. Eden started sorta high so I had to push a little more than usual since I had to push her down. The nurse said I was doing it correctly (even though I kept doubting myself) so I kept pushing. Now pushing is 3 sets of 10 second pushes during each contraction. Between contractions is about 2 minutes which means you get to rest for 2 minutes and then push for 30 seconds. I was exhausted after 5 pushes so I definitely didn't know how I would be able to push for 3 hours if I had to.

7:00pm - The doctor came in and checked to see how things were progressing. You know when you look at someone and can kind of tell if they have "gentle hands" or more of the "rough and tough"? Well when you look at my doctor, you can tell he's not gentle and more rough and tough, let's get things on the road type of guy. Well great, he came in and looked at the progress and started stretching and moving things around down there to really get the show on the road. It was PAINFUL. Okay so I couldn't feel pain but the pressure was so intense I could feel how painful it was. The doctor as rough as he was though, was a pretty great motivator. Throughout the next 2 pushes he motivated me to push as hard as I could and gave me so much encouragement that I was doing it right. By the 3rd push he said that I was there and I just needed to push one more time and I'd have a baby. I couldn't believe it and I didn't. I gave my last push as much as I had and well he was right, I had a baby by 7:05pm.

Now for the nitty, gritty, dirty details. At the end of pushing Eden out and having a baby, I wasn't able to hold Eden because when they broke my water they saw some meconium (baby poop) in the bag of fluid and they wanted to make sure that she didn't swallow any and there was nothing in her lungs. They said that if she cried that there was no way she swallowed it and that she would be fine. But either way they would test her and make sure everything was okay. Well she cried when she came, but they still took her away and while they took her away...

I was stitched up. And I was, what you call "man-handled" to get my placenta out and to make sure I don't hemmorhage. Now when I say man-handled, I mean the doctor was totally pushing down on my stomach with all four fingers with all his might for about 5 minutes. It would have been nice if I couldn't feel it but I felt every bit of it and it was probably more painful than the contractions I was feeling before my epi. Both of these two things, the stitching and the man-handling to get the placenta out, was painful but I got through it thankfully.

So at the end of my delivery, the status is that I have stitches, they didn't tell me how many but he showed me how long of a cut he made (he didn't even tell me he cut me and I had no clue he did) and I have swelling in my bottom area (some nurses say swelling, some will say I have minor hemmroids). Monday was a painful one. I couldn't sleep very well because I was in pretty much a whole lot of pain and it was hard to just lay down without feeling pressure and pain all throughout my bottom region.

Through it all though, Eden is in this world and I would do it all over again in a second if I had to. Ever wonder how it feels like to fall in love at first sight? Have a baby.