The nine months that it took for my little bundle of joy to enter this world were the longest/shortest of my life. Some months would just crawl by, but the last two went by way too fast.
My little Lex was born on the 23rd of January at way too early in the morning. We thought that he would have been here on the 22nd since I went into {real} labor at about 2 in the morning that day. No such luck. I actually went into labor Monday afternoon, but the contractions were in my back and every 20 minutes lasting forEVER. Yeah, I mean I would have back pain for about 6 minutes until it subsided. That was no fun! Anyways, we called the hospital around 11 that night because the back pain was really bad and the pain was every 3-4 minutes lasting about 2 minutes each time. The nurse told me to take a bath and see if the pain stopped and to call back in an hour. Sooooo I did. And the pain stopped. It was relief and frustration all at the same time. I was glad the pain stopped, and glad that I wasn’t in labor because I was starting to get a little freaked out. It was frustration because I just wanted this baby to get out of my body. We went to bed, but my back pain started. I forced myself to go to sleep because I knew the baby was going to come soon and I needed all the rest I could get. At around 2 in the morning I woke up to a text from my sister {really, who texts that early in the morning?!} asking how I was doing. Then I felt it. Not only was I having INTENSE back pain, but now the pain was in the front. And holy cow did it hurt. I got out of bed and walked around a little… went to the bathroom… and came back to bed. I woke up Josh saying “hey. the baby is coming today. get as much sleep as you can.” Josh just grunted and then fell back asleep. But the sleep was short lived because at 3 I woke him up because the pain was so bad. We called the hospital again around 4 after tracking the contractions and they told me to take a bath. Well the bath subsided the contractions for about 10 minutes and then they came back in full force. We called back and I pretty much insisted that we were going there to get checked out. The nurse wasn’t happy about it, but whatever. She wasn’t the one in labor.
We got to the hospital around 5 and they checked me out… I was only at a 3. Ugh. So they had me walk around the maternity ward for an hour. My contractions were still every 3 minutes and they hurt … so many bad words were said that day. After the hour they checked me again and I was still at a 3 so they sent me home. They gave me some drugs to help me sleep a little bit when I got home, and that was amazing. We got home. The nurse said that the drugs might make my contractions go away, or they might get more intense. I slept for about 3 hours and then woke up to REALLY INTENSE CONTRACTIONS! That was at around 10:30 in the morning. We tracked the contractions and it got to the point that I couldn’t walk or talk through them and I was in the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. Josh had to call the hospital for me and they told me to come in right now! As Josh was getting everything in the car I decided that I needed to pee. As I was walking up the stairs I called out to Josh that I peed my pants a little bit. But it turns out that I didn’t… I went pee but more than pee came out. My water broke. It was the weirdest feeling to have water come out of my body that wasn’t pee, and I knew it wasn’t pee. The time was close at hand that the baby was coming.
The second hospital trip was way better. I was at a 4.5 and the nurse checked to see if my water had really broken or if I just had a lot of pee. It really did break. My contractions were still extremely intense, but breathing through them helped. Not a lot, but I was able to take my mind off of the pain. I would think about other things as I was breathing and that REALLY helped. Josh holding my hand helped too because I was able to squeeze his hand a lot… poor guy I almost broke his fingers off haha. I was “admitted” to the hospital at around 1 in the afternoon.
When I was moved to the birthing room I immediately asked for some kind of relief from the pain because it hurt so bad. I was given some narcotic that I can’t remember the name of, and it was the best feeling ever. I felt so much relief and I fell asleep almost immediately. My doctor and I had decided that my epidural was going to be given when I was dilated to a 5. When I got the epidural I was at a 6 and that was at 3 or 4 in the afternoon. My doctor came to see me after he was off work and finished with a meeting … and so I didn’t see him until around 8 at night. I was checked again and that time I was at an 8. They were surprised at how fast I was progressing for being a first time mom, but I was glad. I wanted it to be done because I was so exhausted. Luckily it was a Tuesday that I was in the hospital so I was able to watch some of my favorite shows like New Girl and Parenthood. I was checked again when Parenthood was finished at around 11, and I was at a 9.5. Turns out that the baby was posterior and that was why my contractions were hurting so bad so the nurses did some tricks to get him to turn around and move down a little bit more and they worked almost immediately. 11:30 rolled around and I was fully dilated so they called my doctor and then told me to start pushing. I looked at the nurse and blurted out “I am not ready to push!” but she insisted that I do it… so I did.
I pushed. And pushed. And pushed. For 7 minutes less than 3 hours. It was the most exhausting thing I had ever done. Ever. Only later did I realize that most women don’t push for that long… but my poor little guy got stuck “comin’ around the corner” as my doctor put it. :o) The vacuum was used to get him out. One of the nurses made a big stink about it saying that it shouldn’t be used until a certain point, but my doctor put her in her place and I am thankful that he did… I really did not want to have a C-section if I could avoid it… not after going through all of that stress of trying to push a baby out only to have my body sliced open. I would have consented if it was necessary of course, but I wanted to avoid it at all costs. Anyways… the Doctor made sure I was okay with him using the vacuum, I looked over at Josh and then looked at my Doctor and Josh and I pretty much said at the same time “as long as it gets him out it’s okay.”
He finally arrived, and it was so exhilarating. Because I had the epidural I couldn’t feel the pain, but oh my word could I feel the pressure of him coming out. It was relieving, and beautiful. I can remember thinking that it was the most beautiful feeling in the world… to feel this little person being born into the world. A little guy who grew inside of me. He was here, he was coming. It gave me the strength to keep pushing. He came out and only cried for a few seconds. They put him on me and I cried. Josh {sort of} cried. Lex calmed down. He was so beautiful, large cone-shaped head and all. They took him away to clean him up, and he cried again. He actually tried to army crawl out of the bassinet they put him in to clean him. That was a weird thing to witness.
I felt so relaxed after Lex was born. And so incredibly happy. After he was cleaned and weighed and measured he was placed back in my arms, and he really hasn’t left since. :)
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