So we're in a holding pattern now. They woke him up from the paralytic a while ago, and he got a little too excited. (He looked right at us!) They ended up putting him back on, which is fine by me. It breaks my heart to think he might be aware of everything happening to him right now.
The latest update is that they'll close his chest tomorrow, mid-morning. Yay! In the meantime, Jay and I are just resting in his little cubby-room, listening to some EFO, reading the paper - and I figured this might be a good time to write up the birth story before I forget it. :-)
They started the Cytotec Wednesday morning, and after a few doses, that damned cervix-of-steel wasn't going anywhere. They let us get up and walk around - we had lunch, visited family - coming back every few hours for an internal and another Cytotec. When they sent us away around 10 that night, I STILL hadn't dilated at all.
Thursday morning, I was 1.5cm. Yay! They admitted us, and gave me two more doses over the rest of the morning. I started feeling crampy, but nothing I couldn't handle. Mom and Alisa came to visit, and as they were sitting there, I felt a weird rumbling in my belly - and then WHOOOSH! It was the ickiest feeling - every movement meant a gush, so I tried to lay as still as possible. Ick, ick, ick!
Then things took a turn for the worse. The contractions were coming closer and a lot harder. I didn't want to get up and walk - I couldn't imagine that it would be comfortable at all. Instead, around 6:15, I made my way to the shower and sat in the hot water for about an hour and a half. It helped, but not enough - I was feeling like vomiting, I was faint and the pain was incredible. I remember feeling pathetic - I was certain I was still only 1.5cm, and if the pain was this bad at 1.5, how the hell was I going to make it to 10???
Little did I know I had rocketed from 1.5 to 5cm in a really short time - no wonder everything hurt so much!
At this point, Jay asked if I wanted the epidural. I had delusions of natural childbirth (ha!!!!), but this pain was bad, so I said yes. Little did I know that the anesthesiologist would be there within moments - not a whole hell of a lot of time for me to come to terms with a needle in my back. It took probably an hour to calm me down enough to give me the epidural - they were talking at one point about giving me something to take the edge off the panic. I remember thinking in-between contractions that I didn't need the epidural, that I could do this - and then the moment a contraction hit, I was practically begging for something. Eventually, they got it in - and oh my god - BLISS.
Seriously - pregnant ladies - do it. Epidurals ROCK.
I spent the next two hours whipping painlessly from 5cm to 8cm, rejoicing in the idea that I just might have a first-time labor that lasted under 12 hours. 8cm to 10cm took a lot longer, sending me really close to the 12 hour mark. I didn't start pushing until 3am.
And pushing.
And pushing.
The next four hours are a bit of a blur. I was pushing really well, but he wasn't moving too quickly. Apparently, epidurals are "patchy" in their coverage, so I had one spot down by my hip that felt like it was going to explode with every push. We stopped long enough for the anesthesiologist to give me Fentanyl, which helped a little bit. We resumed pushing, but the contractions were too far apart, so for all my battle against Pitocin earlier in labor, the nurse started it now. Soon, the contractions were about two minutes apart (instead of five), and we were off again.
Here's what I remember: the nurse had told me that if a woman's been pushing for three hours, they will give her a c-section. I didn't want a c-section at all, and as the time passed and we weren't getting much further, I started to panic. Jay said the nurse would pull at Sammy's hair, getting it to stick up so that when the OB came in to check me, it would look like I had moved him farther than I had. Still, he was stuck, and several OBs would come in to poke around and confirm that he wasn't really going anywhere. Panic - lots of panic on my part.
Then they couldn't get his heartbeat.
Sheer panic. They put a monitor on his head, and got a beat that way. Still, it was going in and out, and I'm trying to push, push, push. Before long, there were a whole lot of people in the room, and I'm terrified they're going to tell me they're taking me for a c-section. OBs were taking turns reaching to pull on him, to stretch me out, to see if they could help him out. Not working. I hear the word, "Forceps" and I start running through the catalog of concerns with forcep births in my head. Still, Jay keeps telling me how much hair they're seeing and how close his head is, and I know I can push him out.
Now the NICU team is there, and the anesthesiologists and 4-5 OBs and some other people - Jay estimates about 20 people besides us and the nurse.
At this point, the anesthesiologist is pumping all sorts of things through my epidural and someone puts an oxygen mask on my face. I swear, that mask is the only way I got through the next half hour? Hour? I don't even know. The OB is putting the forceps in and I can't push, and they're still pumping painkillers into my back. I can't lift my legs, so Jay and the nurse hold them up for me. The OB is taking her time, and the nurse is getting impatient, so she tells me to push. This pisses off the doctors, but the nurses run the show there, so I listen to our nurse and I push. Again. They pull, I push, Jay keeps me updated on his head. No one warns me and they pump more painkillers into me and I feel it shoot through my body and scream. I think I yelled at the anesthesiologist to stop it; Jay said the guy looked at the doctor and then at Jay, and Jay was like, "Cut it out." I think he did.
More pushing, more pulling - and then he was out. I wish I could explain the sensation, but I was so numb - the only way I knew was because Jay told me. He was crying and I started crying and the baby was silent. I panicked - no heartbeat, no cry - was he alive? I was terrified. I saw him briefly - he was a burgundy color.
They immediately brought him over to the NICU team, and I couldn't see anything. People were standing in the way and I was getting pissed. Finally, I heard a little cry and I lost it. Turns out, the cord was wrapped around his neck, and when we thought they were sort of stretching me to make room for him, they were really trying to move the cord. His first set of APGARs were a 4; the second APGARs were an 8. They brought him over and placed him in my arms. He was too far away for me to kiss his face, so I had to settle for kissing the blanket around his head. We were able to get three pictures with him before they raced him up to the NICU to get the prostaglandin drip started to keep the ductus in his heart open.
While this was happening, they were stitching up a 2nd-degree tear and another smaller one from the forceps. Then they started working on my placenta. I felt another strange rumbling - the umbilical cord had ruptured inside. There was a fear that I would hemmorage, so they spent the next 20 minutes or so reaching in and ripping the placenta from the uterine wall. Let me tell you - I think that was worse than labor. This caused ANOTHER tear that needed to be stitched up - three in total.
It would be hours before I would get to see Sammy again. Jay went with him to the NICU and then over to the CICU at Childrens and then finally back to me. I went to a recovery room, where I panicked because I still couldn't feel my legs, I couldn't stand, and I was certain that with 12 hours of five different painkillers that I had done permanent damage. (I hadn't.) Later that afternoon, Jay wheeled me over to see Sammy - he was the most precious thing ever. He looked exactly like a miniature Jay - except he had more hair than Jay did! We were both in love instantly.
So there you have it - our entry into the world of parenthood. Everyone's right - the pain and the memory of the pain do fade, and Sammy was worth every minute of it.