She's a good girl / Crazy 'bout Elvis So time is flying by like I would have never believed. I feel like I'm amazing busy, and yet I have accomplished pretty much nothing except for feeding, changing, and holding Brianna.
So here's the story, from the beginning:
I was scheduled to be induced starting the night of Sunday, Feb 1. Since I'd been having contractions for like, 2 weeks, I was pretty annoyed that it looked like it was coming to this. So Saturday, when I woke up with (still more) regular contractions, I decided we were going to go walk around until I went into labor :-) So Chad and I went to the mall, Circuit City, Barnes and Noble, World Market, Michael's, the framing store next to Michael's... and pretty much everywhere we could think of. When the contractions were around 3 minutes apart and had been for like, 3 hours, I finally consented to go to the hospital.
At the hospital, they monitored me for an hour, then another hour, then told me that even though I was having contractions, I wasn't *actually* in labor. And that I could go home. So I cried a lot, because I knew I had to be in labor, and I had this crazy fear of being sent home and then having the baby in the car on the way back (we don't live particularly close to the hospital). After some more crying (by me), and some arguing (by Chad), they agreed to keep me overnight in the antepartum unit for monitoring, which wasn't optimal (four women in a room, lots of light and noise), but was waaaay better than going home. But at midnight or so, there was a serious influx of pregnant women or something, so they put me in a real L&D room. By this point, I was contracting hard enough that I couldn't sleep through them, so I got them to give me some pain meds. And I slept. It was awesome.
Until around 3am. When I woke up to a pop, and a huge amount of water leaving my body. I scared the crap out of Chad, who ran to find a nurse. The nurses cleaned me up, and confirmed that yes, my water had broken, so I wasn't going home, and there was meconium, so we would need NICU standing by when I delivered (just in case). I went back to sleep (yay for the pain meds that hadn't worn off), and slept for a couple more hours.
When I woke up, I tried to sit up. This caused the rest of my water to drain (who knew I had that much in me?)... in my still slightly drugged state, I thought the water absolutely had to be draining out of my brain or something. And that I would deflate, entirely, because I had no water anywhere in my body anymore, and aren't humans like, 60% water or something? Thankfully, my slightly drugged state made this thought slightly amusing rather than panic inducing. Nurses came and cleaned me up, and I decided I was done sleeping.
I labored on, making very little progress, until about 9am when they started me on pitocin. Then I started to progress a little. By noon, I had progressed enough to get an epidural. The pain meds were long gone and I was hurting, but managing to power through it up to this point... I knew I would need an epi at some point, but intended to put it off an hour or two. But the nurse was really pushy, and made me feel stupid for not getting one right that second. So I got one. And it was pretty awesome.
At 3:20, the doctor (not my doctor, but the one on call) told me I wouldn't be able to deliver the baby, and I needed a C-Section. Since there was nothing wrong with me or the baby at this point, and I was still progressing pretty well, Chad and I refused. The doctor was pissed, but she left. And the nurse was awesome.
And I labored on. And on. And the TV didn't work, but they fixed it, but it broke again almost immediately, and I was still in labor. I got Chad to give me ice chips (that I wasn't supposed to eat, only to suck on), and I was starving but not allowed to eat food, and I was still in labor. I got to like, 9.5cm. And I was still in labor. And at this point, it felt like I as going to die. I was having contractions what felt like *all the time*, and each contraction felt like a watermelon was about to come out of my backside. I kept telling the nurses that I felt all this pressure, and they kept checking me and telling me I wasn't a 10 yet. At this point, the contractions were so intense that I couldn't see once they started. Chad kept telling me to breathe, but that was pretty difficult, too. All the panting and breathing left me parched, so Chad was trying to feed me ice chips in between contractions. At some point, they gave me oxygen. I have no clue how long this went on, but I'm pretty sure I was in this stage of labor for about 3 years. I alternated between being sure the baby would slide out any second, and thinking that I couldn't possibly do this, and I was going to die because the baby was going to split me open.
And then they said I had a fever. Which was scary - it meant I needed to have the baby pretty close to now, and yet awesome - because it meant I needed to have the baby pretty close to now. Chad made the nurses leave and asked me what I wanted to do... and I was torn. And exhausted. And still contracting, so really unable to make decisions. So in the end, he decided for me that we needed a C-section - which was exactly what needed to happen. They I had this fear that I would be hysterical and they would have to knock me out and I'd miss the whole thing - which made me hysterical. So I had to calm myself down before we could let the nurses back in.
So they stopped the pitocin. And my contractions became more bearable. Which was awesome. They got scrubs for Chad, and cleaned me up for surgery. They wheeled me in to the OR, leaving Chad outside... I impressed everyone by moving myself from the bed to the operating table (since my legs were supposed to be dead at this point)... the doctor came in, and said "I told you that you wouldn't be able to birth this baby" - which pissed me off. But I didn't say anything. Because she was about to cut me open.
The anesthesiologist was awesome, chatting me up to try and get me relaxed. He was excited that we didn't know if it was a girl or a boy, since pretty much everyone finds out. The doctor started to cut, and I started to panic because they hadn't brought Chad in yet... but they managed to get him in there before they got the baby out. When they pulled the head out, the anesthesiologist said that I had tried hard :-) (Brianna was a little cone headed right at first). I felt the doctor pull her out, which was pretty awesome, and they said "it's a girl" and I could hear her cry. Then 11 billion people gathered around her on the exam table, and I could just see her ear (which was pink and perfect. Which made me happy).
Then I was distracted by the fact that someone was rearranging my insides, and it hurt a lot. I mean, seriously. It felt like they pulled all the organs out of my body from my lungs to my intestines, and were poking all of them and then trying to squish them back in. Not pleasant. Apparently, my epi was not functioning correctly. About this time, the anesthesiologist sent a nurse running to another room for something to put in my IV, and then doctor said "I can't wait, she's bleeding!" Which sent my heart rate through the roof, and set off all the alarms, because I thought I was going to die or something. The alarms going off didn't really do anything to calm my fears, and no one would tell me or Chad what was happening. But the anesthesiologist put something in my IV, and I don't remember much after that. Chad brought Brianna to me at some point, and I remember barely being able to keep my eyes open to look at her... and reaching out to touch her cheek, but not being able to do anything else. I don't even think I got to see her face at that point... I was too out of it.
Then Chad went to the nursery with Brianna, but made it to my recovery room beofre I got there (I think). We called the nursery like, every five minutes, and eventually the nursery nurses brought Brianna to us (I think it was less than an hour, but I still had no concept of time). I finally got to see her - and she was perfect, of course. She nursed (no problems with that! yay!), and I was still kind of out of it (Chad informs me that I called her Katelyn for the first couple hours, which I don't remember). And they let me have apple juice, which was awesome after like, 36+ hours of ice chips. And jello. I had jello. And I was sure that it was the best food ever in the history of the planet.
Honestly, everything after that is even more of a blur. We got put in a postpartum room, I was stupidly tired, and couldn't sleep, Brianna nursed *every 30 minutes* until we gave up and supplemented with some formula, my parents came, and at some point I was allowed to take a shower. Chad was awesome, and took over when I couldn't get in and out of bed or do any lifting, and yelled at the nurses to make sure I got some sleep at some point.
And three months later... we're still doing ok. I'm still sleep deprived, but it's getting better. Brianna no longer eats every 30 minutes (more like every 2.5 hours), and we haven't needed to supplement with formula since we left the hospital. She's grown up a lot... She smiles, laughs, and jabbers at me all day long, and is starting to teethe - which is traumatic, all around :-) She loves to explore things, and is getting better about grabbing what she wants with her hands... it's amazing to watch her grow and learn and change every day. And I wouldn't trade her for anything :-)
This is my brain..... in part, at least.
