The Hospital

Today Little Liam Man is one month old.  So writing this is a little bittersweet, knowing that it is now history.

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7:30PM-  As we were driving to the hospital, it was slowly starting to sink in that this WAS happening.  But I had this terrible thought in the back of my head- what if I'm not really in labor?  What if they send me home?  Up to this point, I hadn't told anyone we were going just in case this WAS the case.  I didn't want to get anyones hopes up.  Especially mine.

I felt really small and really foolish checking into the hospital, "I think I'm in labor?  I was told to come here?"  The nurses station looked like a hen session- not very busy on that Friday night.  They took me to the antepartem room and I took off my outfit and put on a robe and the nurse did an internal.  "You're not dilated enough, maybe 2 cms?  You're only about 40% effaced." she said.  "They're probably going to send you home.  Let me call the on call doctor."

My heart just broke.  Andy held my hand.  I felt embarrassed.  "Why would TWO doctors tell you that you were going to have the baby tonight and then ONE nurse tell you differently?  Just calm down and we'll see what the doctor says."  I made him promise me we'd go for ice cream on the way home.  He obliged.

The on call doc was one from my practice, as I expected.  She suggested I walk the halls until she got there and then she'd make a decision.  45 minutes later I was back on the bed with my knees up.  She determined I was truly 4 cms dilated and 90% effaced.  "In fact, I could pop your bag of waters with my finger right now!  But let's get you admitted first."  Dr. Berich has seen me in the office since I was 16.  She reminisced about watching me grow from a young lady into a beautiful woman.  I was immediately sure this was the right thing to do. The membranes didn't seem like a big deal any more.

"I'm scared.  I'm sorry."  I told the L and D nurse (I swore I wouldn't forget her name for all of eternity...but...)  "Stop apologizing.  We'll get you through this."  Turns out she had three children of her own.  Her husband was a doctor.  She was from the west.

The phlebotomist came to put in my IV.  This was the worst IV I have ever gotten.  They put it at a stupid location on my wrist, and then she hit an artery or something and blood went everywhere.  She had to change my bed.  Andy encouraged me not to look at it and just focus on him- which I did.

 

9:30PM-   When Dr. Berich came in to break my water, I think my blood pressure was probably a zillion over a billion.  I was hooked up to a fetal monitor and a heart monitor and my blood pressure was being taken every 30 seconds (or so it seemed.  My arm was sore for a few days after.)  She inserted this crochet-like hook "up in there" and there was this burst of pressure and then it was like I couldn't stop peeing.  It was warm and smelled funny, and I felt awkward doing all this in a bed.  I laid really still, because I felt dirty.  Every time I would move or cough or laugh, more would come out.  It was truly uncontrollable.

Andy went to the car to get our mountain of labor supplies.  I made him swear to me that he'd be right back.  No sense running now!

Just a shout out to nurses everywhere- you guys are amazing.  I'd never been in the hospital before, and the nurses just rocked.  The nurse brought me pads, helped me put these crazy underwear on and never batted an eye.  Pretty sure this wasn't her first delivery...  She dimmed the lights and encouraged me to sleep until the contractions started.

Yeah. Right.  But Andy clearly took her seriously.  The poor guy was so nervous.  And his back was hurting him so badly.  But he was such a trooper and I loved him so much at that very minute.

I kept staring at the nursery attached to our room, imagining my screaming, slimy son to be there in a few hours.

 

 

 

And then.  The contractions started.

In the Beginning...

I can't believe it's been an entire month since I've written.

Wait.

Yes.  Yes I can.  Because you can't type with an infant in your arms, and I never want to put mine down.  He's just as amazing as I expected- maybe even more.

So here I am.  Here's my story...at least a portion of it.  I will try to spread it out through a few posts so as not to bore the reader.
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Friday, October 5th:

10:30AM-  Something didn't feel right.  Something hurt.  Something was wrong.  So I called the OB, and they said- just come in.  I was a little apprehensive.  I had an appointment later on in the afternoon, but I just couldn't wait.  I didn't tell anyone I was going.  I didn't call Andy.  I didn't email anyone.  I didn't phone a friend.  I drove in and took a seat in the waiting room.  A little boy befriended me and helped to pass the time by chatting my ear off.  But I didn't mind, because I was so nervous.

I was supposed to see Dr. Mantione, but instead Sandy came in to see me.  Ah, I love Sandy.  Sandy, Sandy, Sandy.  I came out with it, "Something feels wrong and I'm probably going to cry now."  And she just wrapped her arms around me and she said, "Honey, let's get this figured out.  Please don't be afraid."  And then she gave me an internal.  And then she said I was dilated 4 cm.  And then she told me I was 90% effaced.  And then she told me I had been in labor for 12 hours.  And then she told me I was going to have a baby.  That night.  And then I started to cry.

She stood up from the exam, and I could tell her hand was bloody.  She said, "I went ahead and ruptured your membranes while I was in there, so it's only a matter of time."  And then I started to sob.  Dr. Mantione came in, and they both held me while I cried.  "Go home, put your feet up, take a nap, and we'll see you tonight in L and D.  All our doctor's are on call this weekend- it's a GREAT weekend to have a baby."

I got in the car and I called my cousin Jodie.  "They ruptured my membranes without me knowing!" I gasped to her.  She calmed me down.  "You were already on the way.  It's safe.  You weren't starting from scratch.  You're going to be fine."

I called my husband, "Hi whoot..."  Is how it started.  "You're going to be a daddy...tonight."  That's all I could muster.  Somewhere in the background I heard cheers at his workplace.

I called my mom.  I can't remember what I said.  Maybe I just cried.

So of course I went back to work.  I came home and my mom and Lauren met me there to stay until Andy got home.  Then Andy and I walked for cheese steaks and fries (what a great last meal...mmm...) and what seemed like an ETERNITY later, we packed up the car with the birth ball, the go bag, the baby's go bag, a bunch of things we threw in at the last minute.  Andy took pictures of me on the porch one last time with my gigantic belly, and we drove off.

I look at them now, one month later, and I laugh.  I don't remember being pregnant.

Hello, Old Friend

He's here! He's here!  My little son is here.

Liam Andrew Robert George
Born Saturday, October 6th at 11:36am
7 lbs 13 oz
19 inches long

And he looks just like his daddy.

Simply put:
He's amazing.

And I want to write about my experience, because it's worth writing about.  It's completely text book- there are no twists and turns.  There are no cliff hangers.  Just one very, very happy ending.  I can't wait to get those thoughts down here.

Decisions, Decisions...

First off, here is me :

 

 

It's actually not taken in the bathroom at work!  It's taken in my foyer at home.  Look at me in my earrings and make up.  I even think my hair is brushed!  And that adorable shirt is never going in the maternity box, because I love it so much (I own it in two colors!)  It's a nursing shirt, actually.  Don't you just love a shirt with a surprise in it?  I know I do.

 

 

Next, here is a gift from Paul and Bri:



 

 

Aren't they the tiniest things you've ever seen??  I just love them so much.

 

HERE is a picture of the afghan I'm trying to frantically finish for my son before he comes:

 

 

 

And last but not least, here's a sneak peak at the baby's room:

 

 

 

 

Ooohhh...  Ahhhhh...  The balls are from our shower, and thankfully I have a tall hubbo because he just reached up and stuck them to the ceiling.  The end.  That's before the Great Back Injury of 2012.

 

So I'm counting down the days to my next appointment.  Maybe I'll make it...maybe I won't.  I'm sure he'll measure me and do all sorts of fancy stuff.  But one of the things the midwife asked me if I wanted to do on Friday is to strip my membranes.  Which, I have mixed feelings on.

 

Essentially stripping your membranes is when they go all "roto-rooter" up in your lady parts to separate your cervix from the amniotic sack.  Doesn't that sound miserable?  It's safe, I'm told.  But.  Then again so is sex and nipple stim, which you can do at home and is more natural and just...more pleasant all around.  So I'm strongly feeling the urge NOT to do it.

 

Andy was wondering how long I'm going to wait to have it done.  He said if it's safe, why not do it?  I told him because it was unnatural, and maybe he doesn't want to be born yet.  "Will you wait until 40, 42 weeks to have it done??  When will you have it done?"  Not that he was pressuring me!  But he had a point.

 

But I just don't think it's for me right now.  I have to trust that my "textbook pregnancy" as they refer to it at the doctors office, will have a text book ending.  As I understand it, the baby sends a message via hormone to the placenta (as the placenta is aging) and says, "I'm READY!!!"  And that starts contractions.  I'm waiting for THAT moment.  Not the roto-rooter moment.

39 weeks...but who's counting?

Apparently everyone.

I'm getting Facebook messages and texts from students, "Maybe we won't have lessons this week!!"

My MIL even text me (this is HUGE, people) and wondered how I was.  I swear her cell phone is a rotary.  I had ten texts to her before she wrote one back to me.  It was a trip.

I did end up cancelling lessons last night, but it was mostly because Andy was really really sick.

Last Friday was our appointment, and Andy came for moral support (poor guy worked 5am to 1:30pm and then came from Lancaster to Middletown just for my app.)  And so I gingerly asked the midwife's assistant if I could be measured. 

She was AMAZING about it.  Just amazing.  In the past I hadn't liked her because she wasn't the normal lady I like to see.  But she's an L and D nurse, and after some prodding from my husband, I decided to like her.  She told me what she was going to do, how it was going to feel.  She showed me a little diagram with her hands of the process she was going to use.  She explained that to find the entrance to the cervix, she was going to have to walk her fingers around in there, because the cervix is usually tilted. 

I thought we wouldn't find anything.  I thought for sure I was going to be closed up tight.  Except, I wasn't.  2 cms dilated!  And it was more uncomfortable than anything- no real pain involved.  It's funny what you find painful after you've felt REAL pain.  More on that later, perhaps. 

And then she pushed up and down on the baby and told me I was pelvic station -1.  In case you aren't familiar with pelvic station, here's a diagram:

(Don't tell anyone I stole this image.....)

 

 

My husband, once again on the business end of all this, mouthed to me, "Did that hurt??"  To which I'm like, "Yeah a little." 

 

Because it did.  A little. 

 

I'm convinced that "man pain" is different than "lady pain."  Because no matter how much pain the lady is in, there's still supper to be cooked.  There are still chores to be done.  One of the things my husband loves to do it to tell me just to sit still. 

 

"Just sit still, Babe!"  He'll command.  Next day?  "Boy this house looks like a dump."  You know why?  Because you told me not to do anything today.  So I deal.

 

And then.  He hurt his back.



So my husband, as handsome and strong as he normally is...is now flat on his back and has been for days.  Missed work, the whole nine yards.  So it's been a trip!  Poor guy though.

You can imagine my mixed emotions as I started having contractions yesterday for a solid hour, every 12 minutes.  At that point, he couldn't have even driven me to the hospital.  But then the contractions subsided.  And then I cried.  Because I really really wanted it to be the real thing.

So here we are.  39 weeks.  Husband with the hurt back.  2 cm dilated and -1 pelvic station.  I'm trusting that God's timing is right.  That I can trust the process.  That Andy will heal and be there to coach me from the first contraction to the last cry from me and the first cry from our son.  It's going to happen!  Just when?

And the survey says...

Here I am at 37 weeks.

It's hard to get an accurate picture.  I feel like a tank.

38 Weeks...

It's the FINAL COUNT DOOWWWNNNN!

(feel free to read that again, singing it this time.)

First off.  Here I am:

The boy is LOWWWW.  And my hair is LONG.  He's on my sciatic nerve, and sometimes the pain just FLIES in there and I want to cry.  Sometimes it takes all I have not to just fall to the ground. 

The other pain we should talk about here is the pain I lovingly refer to as the , "knife in the lady parts" pain.  Lauren and I coined this term, because there's no better way to explain it.  It literally feels like someone has a small knife, and is just inserting it up there and then pulling.  It's sharp, it's intense, and it takes your breath away.  It it not a lasting pain, but you know it when you feel it.

I go for my next appointment on Thursday.  At 2:30.  With the midwife.  And I'm going to request, if they aren't going to do it on their own, to be checked and measured.  With an internal.  *shudder*.  For anyone who is tuning in, and doesn't know how this is done, the practitioner will physically stick their fingers up and up and up until they reach your cervix.  Many times they will push down on the baby's head so they can REALLY feel where that cervix is.  Then they measure the opening with their fingers.  One finger equals one centimeter.  So as you can imagine, it's not a walk in the park.  (Just to put this all in perspective; a penis- you know, the thing that got you there in the first place?- cannot reach the cervix...  just in comparison).  This is the honest blog, friends.  I do not sugar coat things here.

What you DON'T want to hear, after all of this, is "Nope, closed up tight!"  Because that means that all the pain has been for naught.  Even if they say, "Well, we've got one centimeter so far!"  At least that's a glimmer of hope.

And so on Thursday, as my husband and I sit expectantly in the sterile doctor's office, we're hoping for that "Any day now!" diagnosis.

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I'd like to point out that I'm ready to be done being pregnant.  Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed being pregnant, and I will most likely do it again.  But there's a reason why your body starts to fade at the end.  Because God knew that if He didn't create the process like that, we'd never do it again.  "I'm feeling fine!"  We would say.  "Why would I want to put myself through the pain of getting the baby out?"  The way it is now, women are more likely to say...or maybe exclaim in an outside voice, "PLEASE PLEASE let this be done now.  I'd do ANYTHING."  And then you start to push.

One of the things that makes this so unnerving at this point is that you're literally... just...waiting.  Like when you go to a haunted house, you know you're going to be scared.  Eventually.  You're waiting for someone to jump out at you.  And you practice what you're going to do when this person does actually jump out at you.  You may repeat to yourself, "I will not pee myself when this person jumps out of nowhere......." But the more you dwell on what's going to happen (you don't know when...) you just get more and more uptight.  If you were walking through the same haunted house, this time with the knowledge that at 10 paces you were going to be scared, you'd still feel anxious, but at least you'd know what to expect.

Birth is like, "Well, sometime AROUND the estimation of this date, you will go through this whole process- it will hurt like a...well, like, a lot.  And then your entire life will change forever.  So now just practice for something you've never felt and we assure you that you'll forget all that went wrong...as soon as you hold your child.  Oooookay?"  Yeah, sure.  Whatever you say.

People (like my mother) keep asking what's going to happen after.  "When will you need me?"  She asks.  Was there ever a more loaded question?  Bottom line, is I don't know.  Hope am I supposed to know when I've never felt any of this?  I probably do get snarky, but I would like to just be left alone to go with the flow sometimes.  And don't ask me questions I don't have answers for.  The end.

More on this later!  Pretty soon I'll be posting a picture of our beautiful Son :)