Tuesday, July 27
A relatively uneventful work day. A good month before my due date. Sometime early in the morning, I notice a leaking from "down there". Just a small amount of fluid that I actually felt coming out. I knew I hadn't peed my pants (one of the pregnancy indignities that I managed to avoid!). This happened off and on throughout the day, enough where it kept my panties permanently damp, but wasn't soaking through to my pants. When I checked on it, it was a clear liquid with a distinct smell to it...a smell I'd never noticed from "down there" before, kind of musky-sweet almost...the closest thing I can say is it kind of reminded me of Wheaties. There, now you'll never eat Wheaties again. That's Ok, they're gross anyway.

I wasn't too concerned, as I knew that discharge and a general increase in activity in the nether regions was common during the end of pregnancy. Also, I was way early, and wasn't feeling bad, and the baby was still moving, so everything seemed normal. I talked to kathy, my coworker who was due on the same day as me, and she encouraged me to call my doctor and just ask about it. I posted to the pregnancy communities on livejournal when I got home, as it was still happening, and several of the ladies encouraged me to check on it with the doctor as well because it sounded like it could be amniotic fluid. Which would mean being induced and having the baby because they want to minimize the risk of infection to baby once the water bag breaks.

Wednesday, July 28
So, after the encouraging words of the people I talked to, I figured I'd give the doctor a call when I got to work, just to be safe. I woke up in the morning with damp panties still but hadn't noticed the leakiness yet that day, but I called anyway and left a message for my doctor. Then I went in to meet with my boss, as is usual every morning at work. After I had been in her office for a little while, Jess comes in with my cell phone, noting that it was ringing a lot and that I "might want to check it, you know, in case it's an emergency". Really what she wanted to do was let my boss know that my cell phone was ringing at work, meaning I was getting personal calls (like my boss gives a shit, as long as the work gets done!), but haha, it really WAS an emergency. It was my doctor's office trying to get a hold of me because they didn't reach me on my work phone (since I wasn't at my desk)...so they tried the cell...then they called my mom, who is my emergency contact, so then my mom was calling my cell phone too, trying to find out why my doctor's office was calling her. (By this point, I hadn't told anyone but OJ, kathy, and the ladies on LJ about my leaking problem, mind you, so this was news to everyone!) I called the doctor's office and they wanted me to come in and get checked right away, just in case. (Of course, as soon as I got off the phone with them, I noticed the leaking happenning again too!) So I talked to my boss and off I went, still in denial, still convinced I wasn't about to have a baby yet. We were SO busy at work that day, I was sure I was just going to bounce right back over there after seeing the doctor so I could attend to everything. :) Also, we were SO not ready for a baby at home yet! Let it be known that babies come when they're ready to come, regardless of events in the outside world. Lesson learned.

At the doctor's office, I saw one of the midwives, who checked me, pronounced that it did indeed look like amniotic fluid, checked it under their microscope just to be sure, and said yup, it's time for you to go have your baby, lady. I sheepishly noted that we hadn't yet had our hospital tour and asked her where the hospital WAS. (How nice is that, I'm a month form my due date and I don't even know the address of the damn hospital!) She tells me where to go and says just go right to labor and delivery on the 5th floor because they're calling in a pre-admit for me. I ask her if I have time to go home and pack a bag since we never got around to THAT either, and she says that since I've been leaking fluid for more than 24 hours, they don't want me to wait just to minimize risk to the baby. Don't worry though, she tells me; most women feel they need to have a bag packed and you really don't, the hospital will give you pretty much everything you need. (This is true, by the way. I didn't need much during birth or afterwards, although more forms of entertainment would have been nice because the hospital is VERY boring!)

So I leave the doctor's office and call OJ at home; he was sleeping because he had worked a double shift the night before, coming home at 7am (after working for 16 hours) to sleep until about 2pm, only to get up and go work another 8 hours. Well it was about noon when I disrupted HIS day and sleep to inform him that we needed to go have a baby, could he please grab some hair ties, the infant car seat, and an outfit to bring the baby home in. Nothing like waking up, slightly delirious, to THAT news! So I'm standing on the corner waiting for him and calling everyone that needed to be called...my boss, my mom, and my aunt Denise and our friend Tina (both of whom wanted to be there for the event). My boss, as always, was awesome - I of course was all worried about all the work that still needed to be done, and she just wanted me to go have the baby already. :) My mom's first reaction?

me: "Hi mom, I need to go have the baby now!"
mom: "Oh, no!"

Seriously.

me: "what do you mean, 'oh no'!?"

heh.

Then she tried to talk Denise out of being there, again. Because she thought I would change my mind about having people there and decide that it was a private event that only OJ and I should share together, which is what SHE felt about it. I don't know when she decided I was too weak willed to kick people out of my delivery room if I decided I wanted it to be private! I talked Denise into coming if she wanted to be there, assured her I really didn't care who was there and that I'd probably like it better if there were close friends and family there to distract me, at least for a while.

OJ picked me up not too long after all the phone calls were made, and I had him call his mom and let her know she'd be a grandma (again) soon. After we got to the hospital, he also called his dad and stepmom and let them know as well.

We got to the hospital and went to the 5th floor, who sent us down to the 4th floor triage to be checked for labor even though we told them I came directly from my doctor's office, who should have called to preadmit me. Instead of checking, they sent us to triage, who sent us right back up to the 5th floor, who sheepishly said "oh, you're kristi? yeah, your doctor called us. please wait right over there, we'll get you to a room."

So we waited. 15 minutes or so went by, then they brought us to the labor and delivery room at about 2pm. It was a really nice room, huge, with a huge bathroom and shower and all that good stuff. I was pretty excited about that, thinking I'd use the shower when labor got going to help with the pain. (Ha! I didn't think about water ONCE during my actual labor.) They got me into bed so they could IV me and give me antibiotics (for the baby) and Pitocin (to induce labor). I wasn't too thrilled about being induced yet; everything I'd heard seemed to indicate that labor was stronger and worse when you're induced. I still don't know if that's true or not since I've never had "natural" labor, but wow did it hurt later on!

They hooked up the baby's heart monitors and the contraction monitors as well. At this point, they noted to me that I was actually having fairly regular contractions..."don't you feel that?"
No, I didn't feel a damn thing. Seriously. As far as I know, I'd never even had a braxton-hicks contraction, let alone a real one. Apparently I was "in labor" though (although they don't count it as real labor until your cervix starts changing and things really start going, so my actual 'labor' was about 12 hours long); no idea how far dilated I may have been, as they wanted to keep internal exams to a minimum to keep the baby as risk free as possible.

So it came to pass that I was in labor and not feeling a damn thing for many hours. I was pretty free to move around as I wished, but it was damn boring and those gowns are frigging UGLY so I didn't feel like being too mobile just yet (where was I going to go, anyway?), plus every time I moved we lost the baby's heartbeat on the monitor and the nurses would come in and fiddle with it for like 10-20 minutes, which got really annoying.

We watched a bunch of tv, and it occured to me that I was REALLY hungry. I hadn't eaten since the night before (I wasn't planning on being in labor today!). Of course, now that you're in the hospital they don't want you to eat. I tell you, 1) I never realized how many damn TV commercials are about food until I was starving and 2) I got so hungry, I didn't CARE if I ended up being one of those women who threw up with every contraction. I wanted FOOD. So I had OJ sneak me a Snickers bar, which is all I was willing to risk. He would have fed me more if I wanted it. :)

My advice to anyone going into labor: if you think you might be hungry later, EAT. Eat before you go to the hospital! Have a big juicy cheeseburger, seriously. (Or Ok, maybe something more healthy, but still, have something light yet energizing!)

One other thing I noticed, at least at my hospital. If you ASk the nurses if you can do something, they'll tell you no, or say something like 'well, we'd really prefer it if you just did this instead'. If you TELL them you're doing something, they don't argue with you. Maybe the rule is "don't argue with a woman in labor unless she's doing something hazardous to her health"? I don't know. At any rate, take advantage of this and just do whatever you want and/or tell them "I want to do this now". Don't ask permission. It makes things easier. :)

The anesthesiologist came in to talk to me about epidurals. I told him I wanted to try having an all natural birth but would like to keep my options open since I had no idea what I was in for, having never done this before. He said that's fine; that 90% of their patients come in and get epidurals right away, but natural is all good by them, and most of their natural birth parents get through it fine (ie not giving in to the urge for drugs), and that as long as they weren't swamped, I could change my mind on the epidural pretty much up to the last minute. I felt good about that, signed the form, and sent him on his way.

Tina came and sat with us for a few hours. Still I was feeling no pain and my Pitocin was gradually being increased. She went home after a bit, intending to come back in the wee hours of the morning to hopefully catch the baby's birth before she went to work. My Aunt Denise and mom arrived, and made me take many pictures with them. I look as if I'm forcing smiles in all of them, and perhaps in the future people will think I was in pain; really, I was irritated because they kept making me retake the same pictures over and over! "Oh, I don't like my hair in this one, let's do it again. Wait, I look fat in this one, let's do it again." Screw you guys, I'm sitting here in a lovely hospital gown, in labor. You look like friggin beauty queens next to me, put a sock in it already!

My dad and brother arrived a short while later.

I was surprised that they came at all, as no one in my immediate family had been thrilled about the idea of seeing me in labor and/or having the baby. But they all stuck around for a couple hours, taking pictures and yes, videotaping things.

I didn't really want to be on camera at this point, so they did stop that eventually. At one point, Mom, Denise and Matt left the room, and it was just me, OJ and Dad for a bit. By now many hours had passed, my Pitocin drip was in the teens somewhere, it was eveningtime (7ish? I wasn't exactly keeping track), and I still wasn't feeling a damn thing. I will note too that at this point I was really hoping that my entire labor and delivery was going to be this easy. A nurse came into the room and noted that my OB doctor wanted her to check and see if maybe I had a forebag of waters that hadn't broken yet, as that could be holding up labor. My dad went behind a screen (he didn't want to see any crotch shots, and that was fine by me), the nurse went in and checked and sure enough, there was a forebag of waters (I was also only dilated to 1.5). So she took the long sharp pokey stick (which I really didn't feel at all) and broke it; there was a sudden huge gush of water (gross!), and all of a sudden, hey, I could feel contractions. Wait, who decided this was a good idea?? They were really just like strong menstrual cramps and weren't too bad yet, but they definitely had a fast pattern to them, they definitely had peaks of more intense pain, and I definitely started to get a little irritable. My immediate family left shortly thereafter, and it was just me, Denise and OJ, settling in for the long haul. (Tina never made it back; she ended up sleeping through her alarm and woke up just in time to go to work.) The nurses checked in occasionally, noting my pain level on a scale of 1-10, checking monitors, etc. I got up and walked around for a bit, as the contractions got steadily worse. It helped to just be on my feet for a while; then it helped to sit in a chair for a while. A long while, actually. I sat there and watched my contraction monitor...in a way it sort of helped to watch those peaks coming and, more importantly, LEAVING. I breathed and moaned through each one (never took a breathing class, and I don't really feel like I missed out on anything; I just made sure to keep breathing and stay as relaxed as possible through each one; the nurses said the low moaning was a really good technique too). It also helped me to rock my legs back and forth (the pain also traveled down the tops of my thighs too, which wasn't so pleasant) and, for some reason, shake my head back and forth through each contraction. For a while I felt pretty self conscious about this, knowing I probably looked pretty stupid, and all I can say about THAT is I wasn't really hurting too bad at this point, because later on I could have cared less about how I looked!!

Several hours of steadily increasing pain. Eventually I couldn't talk through the contractions, and I was starting to get tired. I was dilated to about a four, and my personal pain level was at about 5 on a scale of 1-10, when I asked for a drug of some kind to take the edge off. They offered me Dilodin, which would both go in my IV and I would get a shot of it as well. I declined for a bit, but took it probably an hour later. I got back into bed, they drugged me up, I had an instant rush of lightheaded sleepiness, and proceeded to sleep between every contraction, waking up only for the (now somewhat less painful) peaks, falling asleep again after...that went on for a couple hours, then the pain started getting worse.

Thursday, July 29
Midnight came and went in there somewhere. I honestly don't know when. Denise, OJ and I spent a lot of time sleeping and/or nodding off as much as possible. They both rubbed my back for a while early on, but I had to stop that at one point because, even though I wasn't having back labor, the contractions got so intense that being touched at ALL hurt. I'm a fairly solitary person when it comes to pain anyway, so I mostly wanted to be left alone...didn't mind that they were there, was happy to have them there, but wasn't up for much touching or conversation. Encouraging patter and concerned questions would only have irritated me. :) So we were all pretty quiet, and slept as much as possible. I got a second round of Dilodin about 3 hours after the first one, which helped but not as much as the first time...it took off less of an edge, plus the contractions were getting worse anyway (and somewhere in there, they were STILL upping my Pitocin! Ouch)...about two hours later, I asked for a THIRD round of Dilodin; my personal pain threshold was at a 9 on the scale at this point, I was fighting HARD not to cry with every contraction, I was dilated to 7. OJ urged me to get the epidural; I still had a ways to go, he said, and I would need my strength for the end of labor. The doctor as well noted that at this point they'd recommend the epidural over giving more IV drugs. Tired, in a world of hurt, I acquiesced. In came the anesthesiologist, whom I instructed to please not show me the needle or anything...they made OJ and Denise leave for this part. They put the lidocain in my back, told me what they were doing, I felt some pressure, and then "done!". I laid back down in the bed, feeling a pleasant tingly numbness in my legs. The contractions faded out to nothing a short while later. Let me tell you, I am NOT disappointed I got the epidural. At ALL. I'm glad I waited as long as I could stand simply because I wouldn't have liked being bed bound for the entire labor (since your legs are numbed, you're not allowed to walk around or anything, AND you get catheterized if you need to pee!), but next time I will likely get an epidural and not wait until I'm at my pain endurance limit. (But I won't be one of those women who walks in and demands an immediate epidural either!)

I felt some pain where we thought the baby might be pressing on a nerve, but it wasn't too bad and aside from that, I had a good two pain free hours of contractions. Then they started to hurt again. I called the nurse and we pressed the epidural medicine button. Pain kept increasing. We waited the requisite fifteen minutes, pressed the button again, and called the doc to see what was going on; my contraction pain at this point was as bad as it had been before and I was getting a little panicky, thinking something was wrong with my epidural and not entirely sure I could stand things getting worse or going on like this for a long time. (I was thinking I was still somewhere around a 7 dilation!) They came in and checked me out; "Oh, you're dilated to 10! It is hurting again because it's time for you to push!" Oh. I can do that.

So it's 7am; the doc comes in, they take the end of the bed off and tell me that for each contraction, one of the nurses will hold one of my legs, OJ will hold the other (he was SO happy to hear that, heh! He didn't really want the action shot of the baby being born, but once he got his job, he kind of didn't have a choice); I was to grab on under my thighs and PUSH as hard as I could, for ten seconds, three times in a row.

Pushing is a lot of work, but it didn't HURT at all - it was actually kind of relieving to push through the contractions, although it is exhausting. I should amend that to, it didn't hurt with the epidural; the doc said it would have hurt (the baby coming out, that is, not the act of pushing) if I didn't have the epi. They said I was a champion pusher; 46 minutes later, my baby was born! (Average pushing time for first time moms, they said, is 1-2 hours! Also, some people believe that having an epidural slows down your labor and makes pushing more difficult, but I found neither of those to be the case for me.) I did feel a lot of pressure as the baby came out, especially with his shoulders, but that was it. At 7:46AM, Baby Beldar was born. kidding! :) They sure do have pointy heads when they first come out though!

No, it was Drake Owen Dorson, just as we suspected. 20 inches long, 7 pounds 15 ounces. I didn't get to see him right away (which they warned me about) because he was a preemie and the pediatricians wanted to examine him more carefully; for being a preemie, he did great. Apgars of 7 and 9; the only thing that worried them is that he really didn't want to cry. He didn't even cry during his bath or his vitamin k shot or anything. He's really perfect :), and he doesn't cry much even now.

Immediately after he was born, I forgot the pain (I also demanded my husband's Pepsi, hehe). I was very skeptical about this part, but really, it's true. I knew it happened, sure, and even now I remember it hurt a lot, but there is no lingering part of the pain there, and everyone who told me "it's all worth it" was SO right. I'm definitely looking forward to having more children with my husband. Later, as in several years from now. But it is definitely worth it.