WOW that is weird to say. But I have to be honest-- it is the single most amazing job in the entire world and I wouldn't trade it for anything. All it took was Ethan to look up at me with his big blue eyes one time.. and I knew my life was changed forever. But in true Jen style we couldn't possibly bring a child into the world without some sort of commotion. So I give you my birth story:
Disclaimer: This is going to be long and probably confusing. But it was long and confusing. And stressful and scary among many other emotions.
Disclaimer 2: There will probably be some parts of this that are TMI.. but hey no one is forcing you to read it!
July 1, 2009: Due Date. I went to the doctor and I was about 2.5 cm, she stripped my membranes and told me there was no way that I would make it to my 41 week appt and she would probably see me the following day in Labor and Delviery (L&D) as she was on call. I was so excited that the end was in sight! I took a long walk with my mom and pup that afternoon and got excited to meet my baby boy. I was having contractions but I wasnt really timing them because I could tell they werent close enough together or intense enough to be the real deal.
July 2, 2009: Scott decided to stay home from work because I told him I wasn't feeling good.. I had had a headache since about 2am that was just not going away even with lots of tylenol. Around 10 my vision started to get blurry so I called my Dr and around 11am and she said head to L&D to get my blood pressure checked. So we went to Subway for lunch and headed that way.. I was not trying to eat nasty hospital food as my last meal before labor if they decided to keep me at the hospital. Walking out of Subway I was just not feeling good at all.. still contracting but again not regular and I mean they hurt but I could still talk through them. When we got to L&D and they asked if i was contracting and I said I was so they decided to hook me up to the monitors while they checked my blood pressure. I apparently have a high pain because my contractions were alot more intense and alot more regular than I thought. Oops. Anyway they checked my blood pressure which was a little high so they told me to wait and see what my doctor said. My doctor came in and checked me and I was 4cm! I was shocked. She told me that because of the headache and blurry vision and my contractions I could stay if I wanted and have the baby. She explained that I would need the help of pitcoin probably unless I wanted to change the name of Labor and Delivery to Labor All Day. haha. I was fine with the pitocin especially since I didnt even realize how strong my contractions were. I was bascially to excited for words that they were gonna let me stay and have my baby!! So I sent Scott to get my stuff and got comfortable. The doctor broke my water at around 3pm. I labored on my own (with the pitocin) until I was 7cm then I decided to go ahead and get the epidural because I was in pain now and the anesthesiologist was already there doing 2 other ones. This was around 10pm. The epi went way smoother than I expected. I was really nervous about it because needles and tubes in the spine are just not my thing.
Super long story cut short I basically just not progressing fast enough.. my water had been broken and I had been laboring for a while at this point. They were upping my dose of pitcoin but everytime they upped it Ethan's little heart would spike with one contraction and drop with the next and so on and so on. This caused my husband to park himself in front of the heartrate monitor and study it. Everytime his heart rate dropped below 100 (read: every few minutes when I had a contraction) and alarm would go off. There were so many other people in labor though that no one would come turn it off. So that became Scott's job because I could not take the crazy beeping in my ear. So he would watch for the heart rate to go back up and turn it off. And on top of it all my nurse told me I wasn't making fast enough progress. They thought he was laying on the cord and that when I would have a contraction since my uterus got smaller his heart rate would jump either up or down. So they turned off the pitocin and pumped me back up with fluids and did an internal montior on his heart rate through his little scalp and my contractions on my uterus.. At this point I had so many tubes coming out of me. I had mulpitle IV bags.. multiple tubes coming out of the bird and an oxygen mask on to try to get more oxygen to Ethan (This was at about 2am) Basically my doctor and the nurses were trying to just get him past this crazy heart rate business and me over the 7cm hump so I could make some progress quick and get him out. Well after the doctor got me all hooked up to these crazy tubes and upped the pitocin again his heart rate suddenly dropped to the 40s. And the alarm went extra crazy this time and I thought we were under nuclear attack. I was so worried/scared/nervous. All I remember is the words C SECTION STAT come out of my doctors mouth and it then looked like an episode of Grey's Anatomy with doctors and nurses running and coming out of the wood work.
His heart rate came back up (thank god) before I even got to the OR but they weren't taking any chances at that point.. and I was so scared and everything was happeneing so fast I didn't know what to do but lay there and take it. They hurried my mom and MIL out of the room and got DH all scrubbed up. They were hooking me up to stuff and unhooking me up from stuff. They wheeled me away within 5 minutes of the doctor saying C Section. And it was just a crazy whirl wind after that -- all I can say is it happened FAST. The c-section hurt.. hurt ALOT. When they say pressure and tugging that is the understatement of the century. And I got the shakes from them upping my epidural. Shaking uncontrollablly is just no good for business.
I guess I just had NO IDEA what to expect with regards to the c section because no one had ever even mentioned to me the possiblity of having one (all I heard was the chance was so low because I had such a healthy pregnancy and I was so young and healthy) I was just and trying to keep myself together. In every book I read I skipped all the C-Section parts. Scott was great in the OR trying to keep my calm or I would have gone absolutely crazy. He told me how great I was doing. All in all it was the quickest and scariest process ever. One second I was laying there watching his heart rate monitor and the next I was getting cut open.
BUT...
Ethan Scott Tennyson made his arrival on July 3, 2009 at 3:21am He was 9 lbs 0oz and 22 inches long. I got to see him for about 15 seconds and they told me he was healthy wisked him away to the nursery. Scott did get to cut the cord though and he stayed with me while they got me closed up and then went to see him at the nursery. I had to go to the recovery room for an hour by myself where I got really naseous and threw up. Which is easier said than done when you cant even barely lift your head from all the drugs they had given me. But I figure I got sick probably because I was worried sick about my baby boy. Turns out he was healthy as can be.
I finally got to my post partum room at about 5am and Scott was allowed back and they brought me my baby. He was so perfect!
We spent the next 2 days in the hospital having visitors and snuggling! I am more in love with him than I ever thought I would be. We got to come home Sunday July 5 in the afternoon and I have been in ALOT of pain. But it is worth it to have him here and healthy.
A whale of a bath tub =)
