Amelia's Birth Story

Monday. June 23rd. 3:00am. I'm sound asleep. Suddenly, I felt a sort of gush of liquid, not a lot, but enough that it woke me up. In my groggy state, I was thinking - did my water just break? Or did I just pee my pants? I'm honestly not sure....so I got up, went to the bathroom, and once I stood from the toilet, I felt yet another gush. Yep. I'm pretty sure my water just broke. So, what do I do???? The most logical thing of course. I go back to bed, because I'm tired. And I'm thinking labor is coming soon, so I need all the sleep I can get.

In the morning, Jason got up for work and kissed me goodbye, and I think to myself, should I tell him that I think my water broke? No....I'll let him go to work, then I'll call the doctor and see what she says. That way, he doesn't have to take a day off work just because I peed my pants. So, I slept a little longer, waited until 9am and then called my doctor's office. They told me I should just go to Labor and Delivery at the hospital - and they can do a test to make sure that I didn't just pee my pants. At this point, I'm really concerned about ruling this out. 'Cause if I did pee my pants, that would be embarassing. And gross.

I called Jason at work, told him to come home. I called my parents and told them to come on out to my house. The plan was that my dad would watch my other two children, and my mama was going to be there for the birth. I called my SIL Jen, who was supposed to be flying in from Idaho on Wednesday (to be there for the birth) and she was really bummed out. I was really bummed out. We've been planning this for months - hoping that the timing would all work out. So, last minute, she decided to change her ticket and spent the entire day trying to get over to this side of the mountains. She also spent the entire day praying that my baby wouldn't show up before she arrived at the hospital. Wasn't that sweet of her? More on that later...

Jason and I finally arrived at the hospital around 1pm, and they did the tests and sure enough, my water did indeed break. (Phew!) I'm now at 2.5 cm. I wasn't really in active labor at this point, so they told me to walk the halls for a bit to see if that would get things going. Does that ever really get things going? Not in my case. I was having contractions, but nothing strong enough. So, at 4:45pm the nurse wheeled in the pitocin.

And I was scared to death. Because pitocin is the devil. I had pitocin with Andrew, and it was by FAR the most painful thing I've ever experienced in my life. So painful, that I actually started to go insane. From the first drip of that stuff, until they gave me the epidural (3 hours) I was trying my hardest to conjure up a way to get up out of my body, and run away from the hospital as fast as I could. I had convinced myself that this was a realistic option. Seriously, I did not know the human body was capable of feeling that pain. I explained my story to my nurse, and she told me they would take it very, very slow. So, it started to drip.....and you know what? It was fine. It wasn't at all like it was with Andrew. No instant hell. No temporary insanity. Sure, it made the contractions hurt a little more, but it wasn't anything I couldn't breathe through. I was in my groove.

I asked for the birthing ball, and I sat/rocked on it for about an hour, then got back in the bed, then back to the ball and around 8pm, the nurse came in to check me. Coo, I thought. It's money time. I've totally made some RAD progress........er, maybe not. I was at 3cm. After ALL THAT TIME. And pitocin. And feeling like I was mother nature herself just breathing away those contractions. I was even visualizing my cervix opening. And I had made a 1/2 cm progress. LAME. Just look at how happy I am.

Around 9pm, Jen finally walks into the room and informs God that He can go ahead and let me have the baby now that she's arrived. Apparently she's got connections because, oh my goodness, things took off. The contractions were coming closer together, and they were hurting more.....and more.......and more. I was getting to that point where voices were making each contraction hurt more. So, I start shushing people when a contraction started. Shhhhhhhh.....I hold up one finger (which means, quiet please, another one is coming), close my eyes, and breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth. And what's this I hear? My mother and Jason having a full on conversation right in the middle of my contraction! They've BOTH been through this with me before, not once, but twice! I love my support system. I think both of them should just quit their day jobs and become doulas. Don't worry, though. They totally got schooled as soon as that contraction was over.

At around 10pm, I decided I was done being a rockstar and asked for the epidural. They came in and got that thing is quick, and within minutes I was comfortable yet again. At 11pm, they checked me again. I was at 5cm. Yeah!!! Things were moving now!

I started to feel some pretty intense pressure, and asked the nurse to up the epidural. I figure, if I paid for it, I want it to work, right? Well, guess what? An epidural doesn't do anything for pressure, it only eliminates the pain from contractions. And the pressure I was feeling was far worse than any other labor I've had. I guess this was because Amelia was in a posterior position or "sunnyside up." I started to shake. Uncontrollably. It hurt. Bad. REALLY FREAKING BAD.

The nurse told me to breathe through the pressure, and she'd check me again. So she starts doing her thing, and says:

"Okay, you're at an 8.....hang on just a sec......(I feel her doing something up there)....yep....mmmhmmm......okay, now you're at a 10. But don't push. We have to call the doctor. He's at home, in bed."

Say what?

Oh, here comes another one. Just breathe.....breathe.....oh, god it hurts......I'm starting to lose it.....just breathe.......keep it together......breathe.

11:50pm: Finally, the doctor walks in and says it's time to push.

Why do women always say that it feels better to push? That is such a lie. It hurt worse with every push. And I had this Nurse Hulk Hogan who wanted me to push like 76 times per contraction. WTF, WWF? I do three pushes per contraction. Max. That's all you're getting out of me, Lady.

After what seemed like an eternity (which incidentally is only 18 minutes), everyone started to really get excited. Push! Harder! You're so close! Here she comes! And just like that, she was out. At 12:08am. All covered in vernix. My butter baby! She started crying right away, and so did I. My first thought was how much I love her. I instantly fell in love with her. My second thought was how relieved to see how perfect she was. I've had this irrational fear my entire pregnancy that something would be wrong with her, and here she was, in my arms, perfectly perfect. No defects. Just perfect. And pretty, too :)

Proud (and handsome) Daddy

Proud Auntie

Proud Granny

Sweet Baby Amelia Rose