Ava's Birth Day

As you can imagine, a LOT has happened over the past week...I'm going to have to update in a few different posts. This one will be Ava's birth and in the next one, when I have a little more time (ha ha!) to put it together, I'll do pictures. So here it goes...

Last Tuesday, January 8th I woke up at 4am with cramps...felt like I was having normal period cramps, but every so often they'd get REALLY bad. It seemed pretty regular so I woke up my mom and we timed them for awhile, woke up Craig, called the doctor, and was told to come in. We got to the hospital around 6:30am and they set us up in a delivery room...the contractions were pretty regular at about 5 minutes apart, painful but not unbearable, and I had dilated to 4 cm. (Oh, and it turns out one of my favorite doctors was on duty that day, which was great.) Anyhow, things progressed very slowly and I spent a lot of time just watching TV, fooling around on the computer, and clenching my teeth through the worst of the contractions...unfortunately they were getting weaker and further apart so finally the doctor came in and broke my water...the feeling grossed me out so much that I started crying, which had to have been a total bizarre hormonal reaction because it's not like it hurt or anything. But, ugh....gross. That didn't seem to speed things up much, so after a few hours they hooked me up to some Pitocin, which really got the contractions going--a lot more frequent and a lot more painful. (Craig and my mom enjoyed watching the contraction monitor to see what it was doing...Craig reported back to me on the strength and duration of each one because, I don't know. I was having the contractions...I was well aware of the strength and duration, thank you!) I finally requested some Staidol (sp), which is a narcotic they can put in the I.V...not quite an epidural but let me tell you, it was GREAT. It didn't so much take away the pain as make me too giddy to care. For about an hour I was laughing every time someone said something, or nothing at all.

After about an hour the Staidol wore off I lived through a few more contractions before finally requesting the epidural...that itself didn't hurt, but the numbing they did to my back in order to prepare me for it felt like being attacked by a swarm of bees...not fun, but it effectively knocked out the pain of contractions so that's what's important. By now we were getting into the evening, it must've been about 7pm and I was feeling a lot of pressure towards my tailbone when the nurse said it was time to push. I don't know how to describe it, just that the pressure would get stronger and that's when I was supposed to do the pushing. I had my legs up in some scary looking contraption, my mom sat near the foot of the bed and Craig had one leg while the nurse had the other. It wasn't too bad at first. For some reason, I was under the impression that the "pushing" phase was about ten minutes long when in reality it's about two hours for first time pregnancies. TWO. HOURS. My pushing phase lasted around 1 1/2 hours or a little more and I didn't do too badly for the first part but after awhile I was screaming for the nurse to just pull the baby out. (They don't do that.) Towards the end the pain was excruciating and in hindsight I'm pretty sure the epidural had somewhat worn off...the last few minutes were horrible and I didn't think I could continue with the pushing...I hadn't eaten in over 24 hours and I was panicking that I wouldn't be able to get the kid out. I yelled for my mom, who ended up taking the leg that Craig wasn't already manning. Lots of screaming, and the nurse had to yell at me to get me to calm down (I feel like an idiot, but I can't describe the panic...it was bad). FINALLY they could see the top of her head (my mom says that when the nurse told me she could see hair, I said, "WELL THEN WHY DON'T YOU GRAB IT AND PULL HER OUT LIKE A CARROT!") so the doctor came in and after another couple of minutes she was out! You have to have actually experienced it to completely understand the feeling of sheer relief when the baby finishes exiting your body. Oh, and I felt a little better about all the screaming I did because when the doctor held her up, she and the nurses all exclaimed about what a big baby she was. I think I said, "HOLY CRAP, DID THAT JUST COME OUT OF ME?!" or something to that effect. Craig was offered the privilege of cutting the cord, which he declined (I so do NOT blame him, I'd have passed too) so my mom did it. She's a nurse AND she's the grandma, so that was pretty cool for her.

So, my legs are still up in that awful contraption because, yippee--I have to deliver the placenta and also, I'm ripped open and need to be stitched up! Woohoo! (This is why I think the epidural wore off, they had to re-numb me before giving me the stitches...I'd have thought the epidural would have taken care of that.) But they handed me this screaming, only sort-of slimy baby and for a few minutes it really didn't matter anymore...I've never particularly enjoyed the sound of a screaming baby but at that moment it was the most awesome sound I ever heard. They cleaned her up, wrapped her in a blanket, and then Craig and my mom took turns holding her and taking pictures. (Craig also videotaped me holding her for the first time. This film had to be edited, as he didn't zoom in close enough and there was a lovely shot of my legs still up and the doctor stitching me. We discovered this when playing the video back for my parents....wonderful.)

After awhile we were wheeled up (or down, I can't remember) to the recovery room where we'd spend the next two days with the newest addition to our family...the nurses had to give me a lesson on how to clean myself after using the restroom since everything below the belly button was stitched, bruised, swollen, bleeding, and sore....the process was so time consuming that by the time it was finished, I had to use the restroom again. I don't remember much else from that night--I called people, I sent some emails/posted some updates, got woken up every few hours to have my vitals taken and to try nursing the baby. It was probably the longest, scariest, most painful day of my life but it DID have a happy ending. :o)