My labor of love

The first time I held him

Right as they put him down to help him breath

The moment he came out

Trying to focus on pushing

HaHa this was me having a very small contraction. I was laughing here

Oct. 6 I have an appointment with my midwife. Before the appointment I get into the shower and right in the middle of the shower I got extremely dizzy and had gotten a horrible headache. Now this has happened before but once I sat down it went away. This time it didn't. We went to my appointment and turned out my B/P was up. My midwife said I needed to go to the hospital for observation. I got to the hospital and they admitted me for the night to monitor my B/P and in this horrible room. It was so small compared to the ones we toured. Come to find out it was a room for c-section patients. I was released on Oct. 7. because my B/P was stabilized and baby was great. On Friday Oct. 9 I went to get a stress test done and as soon as I arrived at the clinic I got a horrible headache. B/P was back up but baby was still doing great. The nurse called the Doctor and they wanted me to go back to the hospital. On our way there my headache has gotten so intense that we had to pull over so I could vomit (and this literally was only a 5 minute drive). We got into the hospital and they admitted me to an even smaller room than before. I said I was moved out of the closet and into a box! That was my room for the next 3 1/2 days. The Doctors decided that my body was starting to show signs of preclampsia and wanted to have me stay there until I was 37 weeks and at that time they would induce me. Around 2 am Tuesday morning they moved me to my room 127. At that time my contractions began on there own. The nurses monitored me and decided they would skip the pill that goes into the cervix and go straight to the pitocin. Contractions started coming hard and fast and the pain would come in waves but still wasn't at the point where i needed any pain meds. Then the IV nurses came in and poked and prodded around my arms for a good hour. Constantly changing heating pads on my arms and eventually getting a small ultra sound machine to find my veins. They ended up finding one in my left arm but still needed to get one in my right arm. Then all off the sudden I hear "Oh would you look at that one!" Then feel a nurse holding my hand and looking at the side of it right by my pinkie. There was a HUGE vein that seemed like it was bursting at the seems. They said they had to stick me there because there was no other spot. They drove that needle in and instantly I began to cry. I had never felt such horrific pain like that. Once they got it in the pain persisted and I couldn't move my hand at all. After 20 minutes the pain was so intense in my hand I begged them to please remove it and try and find a different spot. They removed it and immediately I felt relief and they found a new vein (THANK GOD). Around 1 pm that day the docs came to check me and I was only at 1 cm dilated. They decided that they were going to put a balloon in my cervix to help dilate me. Well that little procedure did not work. About 2 pm I needed to use the restroom and my nurse Jayme was helping me out of bed when I felt something in between my legs. I asked Jayme what it was and she asked if I had peed the bed and I told her no. As soon as I got to standing a gush of water came out and just kept coming. Jayme went and got a little test kit to see if my bag of water had broken and turns out it had. My water breaking was the funniest moment I had in the hospital. Sean, Myself and Jayme were all cracking up. Around 4 pm I was miserable. They had the pitocin at 12 and my contractions were coming faster and stronger. Jayme had them check me and I was only at 4cm they were trying to have me wait until I was 6cm but the pain was so intense. They gave me an epi and I just relaxed. I was able to sleep all after noon and somewhat into the night. Around 2 am Wednesday morning I was throwing up and shaking from the pain. The epi wore off and that button they give you was not working. By 6 that morning the pain was so intense I could feel everything. I was crying because the pain was that unbearable. The Anesthesiologist came in and was trying to talk to me while I was having contractions and I kept holding my hand up to try and get her to wait and she demanded I talk to her. I wanted to smack her. She ended up redoing my epi and that gave me some relief for a couple hours and then BOOM pain was back. Epi wore off and button was not working again. They came in and injected me with more epi meds and upped the dosage on the machine and then some num nut would come in and say its too high and lower it again. This process repeated itself until 12pm. Finally they had gotten the dosage right for my button and I was pushing that thing as if my life depended on it. Then the witch came back and told me I needed to not push the button anymore so I would know when it was time to push. Around 2pm I told my visitors it was time. My mom originally wasn't going to stay but I asked her to please stay. That I needed her there. My friend cresap showed up to take pictures of the whole birth. They tried to get me to put my legs in the stirrups but it was so uncomfortable that I asked them to put up the birthing bar and I would use that. I got my legs up and it was so comfortable. The then tied a sheet around to bar for me to pull on and boy did I pull on that sheet. When I started pushing I felt SO MUCH RELIEF. All the pain just stopped for those few seconds I pushed and came flooding back the minute I took a breath and relaxed. I pushed for 2 1/2 hours. My husband was my counter and was as I lay there with my eyes closed focusing on his voice while pushing I hear him count " 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, Breath!" This lasted the first 20 minutes and then I had to say something. The nurses all laughed that in spite of all my pain I was able to notice what he was saying because nobody else did. My mom then kept telling me it wasn't time to push yet that I needed to wait, wait, wait, oh take a deep breath, release, now push. There were times I needed to push and she just kept saying wait, wait , wait. The last hour is when I felt the urge to push 4 times instead of 3 and that's when I started hearing Sean and my mom say I needed to just push 3 times but they wouldn't say why. I would try to only do 3 but then a wave of immense pressure would hit me and I needed to push for a 4Th time. The last ten minutes I told the midwife to please get a vacuum that I just didn't have anything left and that he was supposed to be a big baby and to please just help get him out of me. She said that was a very good idea and went and got the Doctor. The doctor got the vacuum on his head and I pushed two more times and out he flew at 4:41 pm. The doctor didn't even pull with the vacuum. The baby's cord was wrapped around him but loosely but I didn't hear him cry. I waited and waited and looked over to see about 20 people around my son, pumping air into his lungs but his eyes were open. Why wasn't he crying. I started panicking and reached for my husband and begged for an answer and then finally after a minute and a half I heard the most beautiful sound I have ever heard in my entire life. My sons cry. My husband grabbed me and we just cried and thanked god he was alright. No sooner had I heard him cry that I started having more contractions and out came my placenta. Then I heard the doctor say do you want to hold your son. They placed him on my chest and he just looked at me. I couldn't believe he was here and even that he was mine. He looked at me then around and then lifted his entire head up off my chest. I couldn't believe how strong he was. The doctor then said they were going to take him and make sure everything was OK and not to worry because they would take good care of him and off they went. They stitched me up and and gave me more drugs and told me I was allowed to push my button again and then I went to sleep. After 38 hours of labor and 2 1/2 hours of pushing I was exhausted.