The dreaded 'B' word. It's funny how things change. If someone ordered me to be on bedrest right now, I would take it gladly! "What's that? You want me to do nothing, stay in bed, catch up on sleep, and you're going to bring me food? Is there a catch?" Of course, at the time I didn't think it was all that great. Despite being armed with books, crochet stuff, a CD walkman and crossword puzzle books, I was in essence, bored out of my mind.
I also learned an interesting new fact: amniotic fluid replenishes itself. Huh. The problem with this is that I was basically leaking the entire time I was in the hospital.The worst part was standing up - it was akin to having Niagara Falls in my pants.
I can't complain too much though because I did have my own room and Joe had a cot to sleep on. The hospital food wasn't the greatest but it wasn't horrible. But all I could do was wait. The doctors wanted to keep the baby inside me as long as possible so that it would continue to develop. They continued to monitor my blood pressure and I had to do frequent stress tests to make sure the baby was doing fine and I wasn't having any contractions. I also had another ultrasound, though thankfully this time I didn't have to drink any water.
Everything was fine with me and the baby and it stayed that way through Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Finally on Wednesday, Joe who had been hanging out at the hospital most of the time asked if I thought it would be okay if he went into work and got some stuff done. I said sure, after all there had been no action whatsoever the past few days. Plus my mom and her friend were coming by to visit me that afternoon. So off he went.
Did I mention that our baby had a fantastic sense of humour?
So late that afternoon, shortly after my mom and her friend arrived for a visit, I started to feel some contractions. Fantastic. I started to time them and realized that they were coming pretty regularly. So we paged the nurse and eventually I was taken to be tested and sure enough, I was having contractions. Great. I'm in labour again and Joe once again isn't here. This time it was my mom who got a hold of him. She stayed with me until he arrived and then she left (she would have stayed but it was my preference that Joe was the only family member present for my labour and delivery). Again, there was that sense of relief when he walked in the door, only this time the contractions didn't stop.
Now before all of this crazy pregnancy stuff happened, it had been my intention to have a natural birth at home with no drugs. Well obviously the 'home' part was out of the question, but I still thought I could try for the natural birth. And I did try, I refused any drugs for the entire first night, but I also didn't get any sleep because the contractions kept me awake. Finally, I was convinced by both the nurse and Joe that I should take some morphene. It would help me sleep and I needed sleep if I was going to be able to make it through the delivery.
Ah, morphene, I really like you.
I slept for a good chunk of the day after that but eventually it wore off and I woke up. They gave me another dose, only this time it didn't help. And wow, were the contractions painful. I think they were worse because I was not allowed to get up and walk around. They only let me out of bed to go pee. Needless to say, I had to 'pee' pretty frequently. I was also strapped to a special machine for Electronic Fetal Monitoring (basically a machine that measures the strength and frequency of contractions) that was not particularily comfortable to wear.
So there I was, without morphene and still feeling some serious contractions. And when the resident came in to check on me, I was only 3 cm dilated, which meant I still had 7 more cms to go before I was ready to deliver this baby! Here was the dilemma: I could try and hang on without any more drugs and have a natural delivery, but no one was able to tell me how much longer it would be before I was fully dilated. It could be a couple of hours or it could be a couple of days. So, once again, both Joe and the nurse convinced me to get the epidural. After that I was able to dose a little bit.
When I did wake up sometime around 8 p.m., it was quickly discovered that I was fully dilated and my body was ready to start pushing. Given the fact that this baby was still going to be born too early, I was brought into one of the operating rooms as a precaution and moved onto a steel table, a much less comfortable surface.
I wish I could tell you at this point that the delivery was quick and painless, but that would be a huge lie. No, this baby was not going to let anything about this pregnancy be easy. So I pushed, and pushed, and pushed. But despite my efforts, this baby just did not want to come out. I can remember at one point, after pushing for 2 hours, someone saying, 'We can just see the top of the head now'. What?? After all that work, that's it?? I did have a great cheering section though - Joe was there holding my hand the whole time, the nurses were amazing and at some point, my midwife, Jenn showed up as well. She was incredible, telling me what to expect and giving me updates on my progress (or lack of it). The problem with the epidural is that I couldn't really tell when it was time to push, so I think I may have been pushing at the wrong times. It also didn't take away most of the pain. I'm not sure if the birth was harder because it was more of a dry birth, but it certainly wasn't because my baby was too big. In the end it took almost 5 hours and they finally had to use forceps because the little guy was stuck on my pelvic bone and was going into a little bit of distress.
After 32 hours of labour, Theo was finally born.
I got to see him for 2 seconds before they whisked him off to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). It was the worst feeling. No matter how tired I was, all I wanted to do was hold my baby.
Of course, my difficult pregnancy and delivery weren't finished quite yet, I still had to deliver the placenta and it was not being cooperative (go figure). At one point the resident was actually massaging my abdomen (and don't be confused by the word 'massage' - it was not in the least bit pleasant!) Finally it came out. Then I had to be stitched up down there (and yes, I felt it, and yes, it was painful - but is that really surprising? Because I'm really not sure how someone repeatedly sticking a needle into your private part, can be seen as anything but painful). When I was done, I was able to return to one of the prenatal rooms where I had to wait to completely unfreeze from my epidural before I was finally, finally able to go up to the NICU to see my little one.
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| Yes, I look horrible in this picture, but really, after 32 hours of labour did you really expect to see a beauty queen? I am however ridiculously happy! |
The first time that I got to hold this new little person in my arms. It is completely surreal. All those months carrying him around inside of me, feeling his little kicks, even some of his hiccups and now, he was in my arms.
Life would never be the same...and I couldn't be happier about it!
Happy 5th Birthday Theo!
And just when you thought that was the end of the story...
To be continued.
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