Lets start with my husband. He is such a planner and organizer. He likes to have things ready and at least two or three different plans and routes in case we run into problems. He always prepares for at least 1-3 problems in every major event so that when these issues arise, its nothing he can't expect, handle and effectively deal with. I married up girls! So his idea was to have a phone tree. Once we knew we were heading to the hospital, he would have one or two people he called who would call three people and call more people and so on. This way everyone we wanted to know would know with us not having to do much. I say us, I meant, him. :) As of 37 weeks, he still had not made that list.
Continuing with my husband's part of this amazing story...we still had not sold our house in Georgetown, TX. We moved from Georgetown to Dallas when I was 7 months pregnant and had put our house on the market there. We had showings, but no buyers. Finally, someone took the bite when I was around 35-36 weeks pregnant. All of our stuff was still there because our house was staged. All we took when we moved was the essentials. So to complicate things, I am now 38 weeks pregnant and our house sold and there is still no phone tree. I told my husband early that week around 38 weeks, that he better start making that list because I felt different. I felt like my body was tired and done carrying this kid because we were running out of room and fast. He did make that phone tree and two days later he had to go move us out of our house in Georgetown and into a storage shed in Dallas. This was his weekend...
He didn't want me leaving Dallas County in case I did go into labor. We didn't really want to be 3 hours away and not be anywhere near our new doctor and hospital. And really what use would I have been? I couldn't lift anything, I could barely bend over and I would have just been in the way. (my husband and I have a very different idea on how to move, so with me out of the way, it was easier on him) On thursday night, he left. He spent pretty much all night Thurday packing and all day and into the night Friday packing our entire two story, 4 bedroom, 2800 sq ft home all by himself. Bless his heart! (I told you girls, I married well) Then his parents left me and went to help him on Saturday. We had relatives on stand by for me. They packed the rest up and the movers came that afternoon to load. They finished loading late Saturday and so the movers decided not to come until first thing Sunday morning. Philip and his parents got home very late Saturday night and exhausted. Sunday morning, he got up, we went to storage, met the movers and spent all day playing tetris in a storage shed that ended up being barely the right size. To top that off, it was on the second floor. We still had cars loaded with stuff, so all that had to get unloaded somewhere too. He was so exhausted Sunday and was finally done. Which leads me to that night...
My husband had not really rested or slept in 3 nights now and he was running on E. We decided to take a break, watch a movie and go to bed early. We finished dinner and I went upstairs to start the movie while he talked to his parents a bit. I started feeling contractions. I thought it was false labor since I was only 38 weeks along and they say that your first is often late. So I ignored them and kept on watching TV. They persisted so I started timing them. They went from every 5 min to every 2 min. Philip finally came upstairs and said, "are you crying?" I said, "no, why?" Apparently I looked as if I was crying. He claims to this day I was, but I don't think so. He asked what was wrong and I said I am just having false labor, no big deal. He told me to time them and I said I had and told him about the progression. He went and got his mom who came in and asked as well. She used to work for a dr. They both started timing me and staring at me. I was like, hey its not happening now, I'm fine. After a few minutes he said he would feel better if I called the dr. It was 9:30p at this point. So I called and they said if you keep having these contractions after a full hour, come in. At this point it had been going on for 30 minutes. At 10, we got in the car. Everyone was excited but I still thought this was false labor. We get to the hospital, they admitted me into triage around 10:15pm. And then the big contractions started.
I was actually telling my husband to find the nurse because I wanted an epidural right then. I didn't know you had to wait until you were officially admitted into labor and delivery to get the epidural and standard proceedure was to be in triage for at least 2 hours. 2 hours?! With sharp pain? And all I can do is lay there. Oh no, no...not a good thing for a woman who is used to moving around when she doesn't feel good and hurts. The nurse asked me to remember what I learned in my birthing class. Birthing class? Hahaha, oh wait...I didn't take one. ;) I figured I would play it by ear. I am a very naive woman. I did not play it by ear. I was only dialated to a 2 I think. It might have been a 4. I don't remember, I just know that I must have been a huge pain because after only on hour or so, she admitted me.
We were admitted around 11pm. I got a lovely epidural around 1am and things seemed great for the first few hours. My husband laid down on a roll away bed and got some sleep...finally. It was great, I didn't feel a thing. Except I was HUNGRY! I mean, bite my arm off starving. My husband (the planner he is) told me to eat on the way and I said we will be in and out, its not labor, but it was and I didn't get any food. I should have listened. I was stuck at 4 (dialated to a 4) for a long time. Then around 5-6am, I started feeling contractions. The epidural appeared to be wearing off. Not good for a women who doesn't like pain and this pain was 5x what it was a few hours before in triage. So the nurse called the anethesiologist who gave me another dose. 30 minutes later, I was feeling contractions. We did this over and over and over. By 7:30am everything was a blur. I had been dosed with so much epidural, the nurse said I could have had a C-section with that amount and not felt anything and I was still feeling everything. My husband quit sleeping long before this because I was in so much pain. I was also still dialated to a 4. They gave me pitocin (which speeds things up) and everything just went crazy from there. The dr checked me and said that I was good and I should start dialating one centemeter per hour, so he would be back at lunch. Lunch?! Remember I was still starving. I told the nurse if I had to wait until lunch, I would for sure faint once I started pushing.
On a side note, the dr I chose whom I loved and was so comfortable with, was skiing that weekend. So I had another Dr whom I did not know and did not want. Two actually. One throughout the night and one at shift change at 7am. I was not very serene with the dr who told me I couldn't eat. Plus, we had hit Valentines day. Thats right, this was all the night before Valentines day and the morning of. Apparently there are a lot of women who schedule to be induced on this night so they can have Valentine babies. I saw the first dr a few times who was just checking in with us. The second dr I saw twice. Once to say hi and once to catch the baby. It was not a very personal experience with my dr.
Anyway, the epidural wasn't working. So the nurse decided to have the supervisor of the anethesiologists (all 6 of them that came in to up my dose) come in and do it again. They found that it was in too low. Given my size, they were just off and so they had to do it again. The rest happened so quickly. They didn't kick Philip out for this epidural because it all needed to happen quickly and he didn't have time to leave. They usually kick the husbands out because of the size of the needle. More husbands faint from that than the delivery. Philip was holding my head and telling me to breathe. The nurse was putting pressure on my stomach to calm the contractions and the dude is giving me an epidural all when I tell the nurse, "Something bounced!" Yep, I felt something. The other nurse who had come in for shift change blew me off and said nothing bounced honey. I said, "No, it did!". The nurse (the one I had all night) told everyone to stop and for me to lay down and sure enough, there was a head. I had gone from 4-10 centimeters in like 45 minutes. And I felt it all! The epidural was done at this point and was starting to kick in, the nurse ran after the dr who came in and said to push. I pushed twice and our baby was born at 8:31am Valentines day morning. I was totally numb and happy at this point.
Thats me at 38 weeks and right after our son was born. I was due February 26 and he came February 14.
The last part of my story ends with me almost fainting off a toilet. They had transferred me to a room and when we got there, I had to go to the bathroom. The nurse and my mom helped me to the toilet and when I got on I started seeing spots, then black. I said mom, I see black and then I remember going limp. My mom caught me (she is just as small as me) and the stupid nurse, instead of helping, ran to the door to call for help. My mom was mad and I remember hearing her say, if you don't get back here I am going to drop her and she will hit her head on the shower. The nurse came back to help, I came around but needless to say we asked for another nurse. Thats what happens when you get up and move around after having a full dose of an epidural.
So there you have it. This was our first borns birth story.
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