After discovering that my water had broken and that I was a few cm dilated I was admitted to the hospital and given a room on the birthing unit. I remember very clearly the relief I felt at that time.
I was hungry and the nurse said I could eat, so Ian went out and got me a bagel and a smoothie. By the time he was back another nurse was there and she told me I couldn't eat. I explained that the first nurse had said it was okay, and she agreed to pretend we had never had the conversation where she told me not to eat. I knew I still had a long way to go and needed something to give me energy.
My contractions were coming about every 3 minutes or so, with a little break between each one. I would lay down for 2 minutes and then have to jump up and get moving again to deal with the contraction. I was unable to control the pain unless I was moving. A lot of this time was just a blur of contraction after contraction and hours of walking in circles around the delivery room (which was large and sunny with a nice view). I did take a hot shower for a while and the running water helped to make it through each contraction. There was a tub available, but it was just a regular sized one, not a birthing tub (or even a big soaker tub like we have at home) so it didn't seem worth it to try to soak in the tub. They kept wanting to come check me for things (monitor babies heart rate, take blood etc. and it was basically impossible for me to sit still. Everyone was nice though and would try to do what they had to do in the short breaks between contractions.
Finally as the evening wore on they offered me some pain medication and I decided to go for it hoping that it would take the edge off the pain enough to get a little rest. They gave me an injection of pain killer, saying it would last about 3 hours. The injection (morphine I think), Did really help with the pain, but it didn't help enough to allow me to be still. I still had to keep moving during every contraction.
Because I had had a c section previously, and because labour had been going on for so long, they encouraged me to have an epidural due to the risk of having a uterine rupture. I decided to get one put in place just so if there was an emergency it was there. At the time I didn't want it to be activated, and they assured me it didn't need to be that it could just be there for safety reasons. Well I guess the explanation I got before they put it in was different (or I misunderstood) but it did apparently need to be activated for a little while to see if it worked and then could be turned off so I could be free to walk around. I remember being terrified that the epidural would stop my cervix from dilating, and since it was moving so slowly anyway, I didn't want anything to slow its progress down. So I finally agreed to have the epidural as night was arriving.
I had had 2 before, so I knew what an epidural involved, but it is much harder to sit still when you are contracting. Fortunately the Dr was quick and the epidural was in before I knew it. Because they had to turn it on for at least half an hour to make sure it was working properly they wanted to use this time to monitor the baby. I was hooked up to the monitors and was enjoying feeling very little pain for a while. It was nice to finally (after days of not being able to) lay still through a contraction.
Then things started to go wrong... They were having trouble keeping the monitor on the baby and decided they needed to put a fetal monitor on his head (up my vagina). This now meant that I couldn't get up to walk around as easily. They also hooked up an IV. I was starting to feel like a patient instead of just a woman giving birth, and was not happy. My plans to turn the epidural off and to continue to walk around were quickly fading. I was going to be stuck on the bed and I knew with out the freedom to move I wouldn't be able to deal with the pain.
And then alarms started going off... The babies heart rate was decelerating. Drs started rushing in, and there was mass confusion. Nurses were yelling at me to change position and everyone seemed in a panic. I could smell C section in the air. The Dr came to talk to me, and I knew if I said okay to a c section at that moment I would be on my way. Everyone was pushing for it. I once again changed position (not to a very comfortable one sadly) and the decelerations stopped. Baby was okay. I had an oxygen mask on and as long as I took big deep breaths his little heartbeat stayed regular. If I took the mask off or moved too much he would have issues. So I decided not to move. And as the monitors stopped beeping , people started to drift away and calmness returned.
After almost a week of constant pain the epidural was a total relief. I could barely feel the pain from the contractions. I was tired, couldn't move, so I went to sleep. The night passed in a blur of people coming to check me, sleep, etc. The epidural was set up so I could push a button to give myself some more relief.
I woke during the morning shift change. I hadn't pushed the button for a while and could feel the contractions again, but on top of the contractions I had a huge urge to poop. I really truly thought I might poop myself. The new delivery nurse arrived and I told her I needed to poop, she decided to check me and low and behold I was a full 10 cm dilated and his head was "right there". It wasn't poop, it was a baby!
The Dr. hadn't arrived yet, but the nurse got everything ready for me to deliver asap. I have no memory of her name, or even what she looked like. All I remember is that she was young, had a trustworthy face and a pleasant voice. I basically closed my eyes and listened to what she told me to do. I have to give thanks to this nurse, because she was wonderful. Encouraging, clear, reassuring. She got me into position (with feet up on a bar) and started talking me through the pushing. At some point the Dr arrived, said something about getting changed, I heard the nurse say "no time, here's your gown". It was less than 20 minutes from starting to push until Evan arrived.
The delivery was the most magical feeling I could ever imagine. I had enough epidural working that I wasn't in horrible pain, but I could feel everything very clearly as his head emerged and the gush as his body followed. I am so glad that I got to experience those moments as there is nothing quite like it.
I had always dreamed of my baby being placed on my chest straight away, but because he was over due, because he was born more than 24 hours after my water had broken and because he had been having those decelerations they had a NICU team set up to check him out first ( they warned me that this would happen before I delivered him). There were a scary few minutes for me as I waited to hear him cry. Apparently he was breathing fine, just really slow to cry. The Drs had to ping the bottom of his feet to get him to respond apparently.
During the time Evan was being checked over (Ian was with him on the other side of the room) I delivered the placenta and then was stitched up. The delivery was quick for a first vaginal delivery and there had been some tearing. I had 2nd degree tears according to the Drs. At first they thought I must have enough epidural to be able to stich me up without it hurting. No way! They froze me and then the stitches didn't hurt as badly.
Finally I was all put back together and Evan was checked out as being okay except for low glucose from being over due. I finally got to hold my little guy. The first time you hold your baby, being number 1 or number 3 is magical. I was so happy and relieved that he was here in my arms and that FINALLY the contractions were over.
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