Since it's been a week I thought I'd write a post about how she entered the world. I'll try to spare gory details :-).
I woke last Thursday for my usual 4am pee break. Did my business and came back to bed. I checked the clock to make sure I still had some sleep time, it said 3:50am, so I laid back down. As soon as my head hit the pillow I felt a gush, thinking I had finally lost bladder control, as I'd heard some women do, I hopped out of bed, and felt another sizeable gush. This was not me losing control, my water definitely broke. I was in shock! I could not believe my water actually broke! So, I waddled to the bathroom to avoid ruining our carpet, and calmly woke Joe, from a dead sleep, letting him know it was go time. I have a tendency to break important news to Joe when he's in a dead sleep. I think it makes things more fun that way.
We showered up, I called the doctor on call to let them know to expect us. She told me to take my time, so we did. We got the pets situated, made sure we had everything we needed, I even contemplated doing my hair and makeup. I'm vain, don't judge. Once we had everything situated, we were on our way. We dropped the dogs off at my mother-in-law's house, who Joe woke from a dead sleep to inform her it was go time, and off to the hospital we went. On the way I called the rest of the graspndparents to let them know today was the day!! Or so we all thought.
We were admitted around 7am, after the nurse informed us I has grossly ruptured. No duh, lady, I was leaking like a sieve! We found out our favorite doc was now on call, Dr. Martin, and we were super stoked about that. It was going to be a perfect day!
When we got set up in the labor and delivery room, the nurse examined me and said I was 1cm dilated and 60% effaced. I remember thinking "What! That's where I was on Monday!!" By this point it had been about 3 1/2 hours since my water broke and I was having no contractions. We were informed that pitocin would be started soon. That did not happen. I had no signs of infection, so Dr. Martin was comfortable with seeing if things would progress on their own.
Fast forward 12 hours later. In that time I had made several laps around the labor and delivery floor, heard several babies being born, saw 3 women actively in labor, and still no progress. Not 1cm more, not 1 contraction. It had seemed that Miss Hazel had changed her mind. Dr. Martin stopped by for a visit and let us know that pitocin would finally be started. Yay!!
I'd been warned about the contractions from pitocin, and going in I was never against getting and epidural. I figured we'd let things play out and go from there. I lasted about two hours on the pitocin drip without an epidural. Towards the end of that two hours my contractions were coming a minute apart and lasting a minute. They were bring you to your knees painful. I mean this literally. I was literally brought to my knees in pain. So, our code word was said to get the epidural. We had chosen a code word so Joe would know I was serious about the epidural. The code word was, pickled eggs. Pickle eggs was weakly said, and an epidural was ordered.
I had been terrified of the epidural the entire pregnancy. Labor never bothered me, actually pushing a kid out never bothered me, but the epidural scared the bejesus out of me. To make matters worse, I had the worst anesthesiologist ever! He was rough, didn't give the lidocaine time to numb, and I felt everything. I mean everything. In the middle of the procedure I was having contractions and I almost screamed for him to stop because the contractions were more bearable than what he was doing to me. It was torture, but I made it through and the epidural took over and it was smooth sailing from there. Smooth, very slow sailing.
When I wussily asked for the epidural, I was only at 2cm. I progressed a whole centimeter in two hours. This was going to be a long, long night. We were informed earlier by Dr. Martin that as long as the baby and I were doing ok, no signs of infection or stress, they would let me labor as long as I needed to even if that meant going past the 24 hour rule. I think Joe almost passed out from exhaustion at that point :-). I remember thinking, this kid is definitely not coming today.
Fast forward 2 more hours. 15 hours since my water broke, Joe was starved, I was starved and exhausted, so Joe went to eat some dinner and let me rest. I was at 4cm. Little Miss was just taking her sweet time. By the time Joe got back from eating his dinner, which I'm sure was the most amazing meal on the planet, I was at 10cm! He had been gone maybe 30min. He came back to me hooked up to an oxygen mask and a delivery table all prepped. This was it! She was finally coming!
Not! I was at 10 but Little Miss was at 0 station. Only half way ready.... I couldn't push just yet. Dr. Martin delivered two more babies in the two hours it took Miss Hazel to get into position so I could push. Now the clock's reading 11:45pm, I'm falling asleep between contractions and the nurse informs me it's time to push. I remember thinking, "Is she serious! I can't keep my eyes open and I'm starving! Can we do this after a quick nap?" After pushing for what seemed like an eternity, but was only about 30min Hazel made her grand entrance at 12:17am March 21st! She was finally here!! The first thing I said when I saw her was "Joe, she looks just like you!" The first thing Joe thought when he saw her was "Ten fingers, ten toes. Oh my god! What's wrong with her head!" Joe must of had a look of horror on his face because Dr. Martin immediately said the cone head will go away in a couple days. Poor Joe, I had forgotten to warn him about that part.
Little Miss was weighed. She was 7lbs 5oz and measured 20.5in. Joe and I had made some guesses about her weight and he guessed spot on. She was a perfect little peanut! I was ecstatic. She was finally here. It had been 39 weeks 1 day and a 20 hour labor, but she was here!
The grandparents were brought back to meet her, and then we were finally sent to our recovery room. It had been over 24 hours since I had eaten and slept. The nurse raided the kitchen for me and brought me the best freaking egg salad sandwich of my life, Cheerios, graham crackers and a granola bar. I ate every last crumb of my feast and passed out.
I was up bright and early the next morning to Little Miss sleeping next to me and Joey passed out on the couch. I was in pure heaven :-).
Here's some pics of Hazel's first days.
Cheers!
