A lot of people have been asking about our birth story so I figured I would take the time now to tell you.
Like the title of this post mentions....Due Dates Are Overrated. I knew from pretty much about midway through my pregnancy that I wasn't going to make it to my due date. Ok wait, I take that back, I knew that I didn't want to make it to my due date. By 30 weeks I could tell that my body really might have started believing what my head wanted. At 33 weeks as many of you know we had some early contractions that were about 5 minutes apart and I ended up in the hospital needing some shots to get things calmed down. Got put on bed rest and my cooking time got put into full swing. At 35 weeks on our 1 year anniversary after having an amazing day I ended up just really not feeling right again. I knew I was having contractions, they were about 4 mins apart, but worse than that my back was just completely not happy. No matter what position I tried to get in, it hurt. I couldn't get any relief. I called the doctor and to be safe she sent us into the hospital. We got some monitoring done and sure enough I was having some good contractions again like I thought. I hadn't however progressed with dilation or effacing any further than I was in the previous week. With that the nurse decided to have me get up and walk for a solid hour to see if anything could happen on its own. Well it didn't. Things actually calmed back down a bit. So we went home shortly there after and they gave me some pain medicine to help with my back. It didn't really take the pain away, but that was the first night I slept more than a half hour! I felt like at least that was a success. On Tuesday the 15th we went back to the doctor to find out still no more progression. At this point I said to my doctor listen, my back is horrible, I haven't slept in days, can we discuss an actual end date. It was my hope that she would at least just say yeah ok, let's induce on the 27th. But to my surprise she said how does the 21st sound??!! I immediately was like OMG yes. That was only 6 days away!
It was time to start really moving. It was my hope that honestly I could still maybe just go into labor on my own. Sure enough though little miss thing was just snug as a bug because nothing worked and we were off to the hospital Monday morning to be induced. We arrived at 7am and got set up in our room. A nurse named Kara came in and I can't lie immediately I did not feel a good juju vibe with her. She was distant and not really connecting with me at all. Which for me was strange because the other two times we had been in the hospital the nurses were really amazing. She tried to get my IV in and literally I thought she was going to kill me. My blood pressure dropped to somewhere around 78 /30 something and I was about 5 seconds from hitting the floor. She claims that the massive protruding veins I have in my arms {that no other nurse, doctor or tech has ever had an issue with} just wouldn't work. She went and got another nurse named Louise. She came in, saved the day and within seconds got my IV in, in a much better location on my arm might I add. Horrible nurse Kara said that at around 10:30 my doctor was expected to come and check things out. At this point as well I still hadn't progressed with dilation. I was still at 2cm, same as I had been the last appointment. We started over hearing that the entire labor and delivery floor was completely full. Literally there were at least 13-15 women in there ready to have their babies. We also had found out that they had called one couple that morning to cancel their induction. I can't lie, if that would have been us I would have been devastated. The thought of having to go through the anticipation again would have been horrible.
Around 10:30 Dr. Sasaki showed up and it was like she was a whole new doctor. Her game face was much different than her office face. She was so on it and comforting and ready to just rock and roll this thing. It was a great feeling. When she checked me, still two and a half hours into the meds nothing had really changed. The contractions I was having were manageable and had been still only about 5 mins apart. She decided to "make" me about 3 cm and then broke my water. At this point I asked her what my point of no return was to do this whole thing without the drugs. I was adamant that I didn't want the epidural. I really wanted to do this naturally. Because the whole floor was full though we found out that my window was much smaller than most. She told me to give myself about 40 minutes and if things got really bad that I might want to get it because my next chance wouldn't be till 2:00PM. I said ok and just figured ok yeah I still go this. Nurse Louise happened to show back up again just to check in and let me know that Kara had to go assist with another delivery at that time and so I asked her if there was any chance she could stay on with me. I told her that I wasn't comfortable with Kara and that I wasn't sure I could do this without her. She said she wouldn't leave me. She'd be the one! I can't tell you the relief that came over me because about three contractions after my water had been broke though, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM WENT STRAIGHT TO MY BACK! I literally stopped feeling the contraction in my front. I was standing, keeled over the side of the bed trying to fight through them and it just got worse and worse. I got to the point where I couldn't even really breathe through them. Crying, trying to get comfortable, trying to hold Wesley's hand. Trying to listen to him telling me to breathe. Trying to look to my mom for that mom look of you got this baby girl. Nothing was working. Louise though just kept also trying to help me through the breaths and as much as they weren't working for the pain, she just was so comforting. I just kept looking up at the clock though counting down my window of time to push that call button for the drugs. I think I got to about 5 minutes before the window closed and I buried my head and just pushed it. I couldn't even say anything when they answered so Wesley just said that yeah she's going to need the drugs. They put me on the list and I think it was within about 15 minutes or so the doctor came and we got the epidural put in at around 12:30. To my surprise it wasn't even that bad. I really thought it was going to hurt like a mother!
Once the epidural was in things started to get more calm around me. I had heard a lot of people saying how oh once I got the epidural I enjoyed labor and the whole thing. For me it wasn't about enjoying it. It was more about finally being able to be more in my body. I had been so tense for so long trying to fight through the back labor that I hadn't taken a normal breath in almost 5 hours. For me it was the biggest relief to just take normal deep breaths. Within about a half hour it really kicked in and I was able to I think sleep maybe about another half hour. That was until the shakes kicked in and I got a bit nauseous. I didn't end up getting sick but the shakes I was having were out of control. It almost seemed like I would get them at the end of every contraction. When Louise came back in I asked her about them and she figured I was probably "transitioning". I didn't know really what that meant but she said you are probably going into the end labor phase.
Around I think 2:00 Wesley's parents arrived and I was really calm by that point. They didn't have to see me at my worst. My doctor had put notes to have me checked again around 2:30 to see how things were progressing. Louise came back and she asked us, so what do you think? I had always heard that if you get the epidural it usually slows things down. So I figured that maybe if I was lucky I would be about 5cm. When she went in and checked and shockingly said, um how about 10 I about lost my mind. I immediately looked at Wesley and started crying. I couldn't believe that we were so close to meeting our little girl. It just didn't seem possible. In that moment I got so scared again, feeling so unprepared. I really had it in my head that if we were lucky to have a "short" labor that maybe around 8PM we might hear this news of 10cm. Not at 2:30!!! She said ok, I'm going to get the room prepped and we're going to practice push! SAY WHAT!!!! Everything else that started coming out of her mouth just was like you've got to be kidding me. I just couldn't get my head wrapped around the fact that this was happening! Like NOW! At that point the nurse asked who was staying in the room. The original plan was that it was going to just be Wesley and my mom. I said that it was totally ok though for Wesley's parents to stay if they wanted to. At the end of the day I'm actually so glad they were there. Being able to share that moment with them is something we will never forget and I know they won't either.
So, the practice pushing made me realize two things, one, I had no idea what I was doing, and two I couldn't feel anything! So luckily we figured out how to actually push, how to breath through the push. Louise was amazing, have I mentioned that? I still can remember her calming voice and her telling me how to breath and helping me through the whole thing. She decided that to help with the feeling that we needed to kill my epidural. Within like 30 minutes of that some feeling came back but I definitely still was really comfortable. Dr. Sasaki got the call to get back to the hospital and I think it was about 3:40 when she showed back up. The end of the table came off, the stirrups got put in place and we were game on around 3:45. At 4:11PM the pushing was done and our baby girl was here!! All 7 pounds 13 ounces and 19 and a half inches of her!
It was the most amazing experience I think I will ever go through. What happened in that room and what a woman's body can do is truly amazing. I never really could understand why women said that about pregnancy until now. But I get it. It really is a miracle.
I want to thank every one at Mission Hospital for the most amazing experience. (Minus the terrible nurse we had to start, ugh she was horrible. Thank god for Louise!!) I want to thank my mamma dukes for being there with us, it's something I will cherish forever. I'm also so blessed that Wesley's parents showed up when they did and that they too were able to share this with us.
Most of all though I want to thank my husband, and Rorie's daddy. Wesley really was amazing that day. I knew he would be, but damn for real, he was amazing. We are so lucky to have him in our lives and in just this first short week the love I see in him when he looks at his little girl. OH MY HEART, it literally could burst.
We are so lucky to have been blessed with an amazing baby. Right now she's eating like a champ. We are having to wake her up every four hours to feed her. At this point the doctor said we'll do that till about her 2 week appointment and then after that if she still wants to be a lazy bug we'll just let her do her sleep thing! But yes, we have a realllllllllly good baby. And we are realllllllly lucky!
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