It all started the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, 2009. We were watching The Biggest Loser and I was having what I thought were Braxton Hicks contractions. A lot of them. They weren’t really uncomfortable, just persistent. I figured it was just us getting closer to the end and I went to bed.
The next day, Thanksgiving, I was still having contractions, but again, not a big deal. Since I was too pregnant to travel to my parents’ house, which is tradition, I decided to get a Boston Market Thanksgiving dinner and have my brother-in-law, father-in-law and a couple of friends over for dinner. That’s right, I was almost 40 weeks pregnant and cooked-ish a full Thanksgiving dinner for six people while having contractions.
As I would put a course in the oven, I would sometimes bend over with a more intense contraction. Again, nothing big and I just thought it was all in my head, so we carried on with dinner. Everyone stuck around until 6 p.m. or so drinking (bastards) and eating. My husband and I settled to the couch for some tv time and more contractions. I started timing them just for fun and thought it was a little odd when they were all around 7 to 10 minutes apart. Weird. Again, they weren’t painful, so it couldn’t be labor. Right?
I had friends coming in the next day to visit from out of town. My friend texted me to see if we were still available and I said yes, and joked he might have to help me count contractions while they were there. He asked why, so I told him and he called his sister, who is an OB nurse. She told him they were not Braxton Hicks and that I was in pre-labor. Psssshhhhh. Whatever. I told them to still come.
We settled into bed around 11 p.m. and I tried to get some sleep—a little hard when you are having contractions every 10 minutes. Around 12, I got out of bed and decided to pack our stuff and get ready so we could go to the hospital and they could give me something to help me sleep through all of the contractions. I woke soon-to-be ADD Daddy up and we headed to the hospital around 1 a.m.
In the car, my contractions got a little stronger, but still no biggie. After over 24 hours of them, I think I had just tuned them out. We arrived at the labor and delivery unit of the hospital and I told the nurses I was having a lot of contractions and just needed something to help me sleep. They gowned me up and “checked me” (AKA fisted me). They told me I was at 3 cm. They asked me to walk around the halls for an hour to see what happened, then to come back.
Soon-to-be ADD Daddy and I walked around the labor and delivery unit for an hour then headed back to the room so I could be fisted again. The lady said I was at a 4. I figured that wasn’t much, so I started taking off my gown and went to ask her what she could prescribe to help me sleep. She then asked me if wanted an epidural now or if I wanted to wait a bit. Wait. What? Epidural? I just need some sleeping pills. I asked her what she meant and she told me I was in full-blown labor. She informed me that they were going to break my water and that it was going to hurt like a b*tch so she recommended that if I was going to get an epidural, I do so now.
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| Sure, I will take an epi, with a side of Bud Light. |
I was in shock. I guess I sort of felt like a big fat cheater. I hadn’t doubled over in pain and screamed so loud half the hospital looked, or had my water break in the cookie aisle at Wal-Mart, or tried to rip my husband’s jugular out, or anything. Was it OK to give up this easily? Being that I wholeheartedly agreed with the use of drugs in birth, I said yes.
Cue me an hour later hopped up on an epi, listening to Nick Drake and drifting in and out of sleep. It was now around 3 a.m. and we just didn’t know what to do with ourselves. In between occasional fistings, we watched tv, checked our email, chatted, listened to music and did a whole lot of nothing for the next nine or so hours.
Around 12:30 p.m., the delivery nurse came in and said we were going to start pushing soon. Again, excuse me, what? Pushing? I don’t even feel anything. Well around 1 p.m., my Dr. came in and we started pushing. It didn’t hurt. At all. Fifteen minutes later—I kid you not—The Quiet Contemplator was born.
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| Tada! I'm here, b*tches! |
I know, I know. You want to punch me in the face right now and tell me your grueling 24-hours-of-bloody-and-disgusting-painful-labor stories, some of which still sadly ended in an unplanned C-section. I am sure that sucked all to hell and back. I feel your pain, sister. But this is just my story. I didn’t see the need to emphasize the sh*tty IV part or add any drama and flare. This is just kind of how it went for us and it was awesomeness.
That being said, when they handed my daughter to me, it was like I wasn’t prepared. We hadn’t gone through enough during our birth experience to feel like she should be here and I kind of didn’t know what to do with her. Everyone was all smiles and goos and giggles and I was just looking at her hammer thumbs (a lovely trait, thanks to ADD Daddy) and thinking I had to pay for her college. Then, things got sh*tty…
Wow. That is awesome. My friend just had her second child this weekend and was in labor for ONE HOUR. She worked on Friday and we chatted, I come home from dinner with the honey and BAM! new baby in the world.
ReplyDeleteMy labor was similar to yours! Except thanks to being fisted at the doctor's office the previous day, my water was leaking, so I had to have pitocin to move me along. I got my epidural and had no pain. I was in labor for 12 hours and pushed for 45 minutes. I was falling asleep between pushes and it was amazing LOL
ReplyDeleteLoved the epidural! One of the greatest inventions EVER!!
ReplyDeleteI started having contractions when I was 3 days past my due date. It was a Saturday night, Mom & I had just come in from a long walk. Went to sleep without saying anything to Mom (the now-ex AKA the Donor was on deployment).
I woke up at 5am and opened one eye to look at the clock. I also was expecting a lot of pain & drama, but it wasn't bad. Just a mild tightening in my lower back every 5 minutes. So I woke Mom up and I drove us to the hospital.
I was dilated to 6, so they gave me the epidural & broke my water. It was nice to lay there & look over at the monitor and say "look - I'm having a contraction!!"
They came in around 9:40 and told me to start pushing. Peanut was quietly born shortly before 10 am. There was poo in the water when they broke it, so they didn't let her cry until they got her siphoned out. I also didn't get to hold her until they cleaned her up. But I looked over & saw those huge blue eyes looking back at me & I fell in love.
OMG. Our birth stories are similar. Very little pain (except you got your epi before they would let me have mine and for that I HATE YOU). AND, I was going through a Nick Drake phase when I had TIH, so a lot of his music ended up on my "birth mix" - a Playlist of music on my iPod which I listened to constantly before he was born AND NEVER during the actual birth because I just kind of forgot about it.
ReplyDeleteLove this. Excited for Part 2, but sorry that it gets shitty :(
Oh, that and based solely on the fact that I know you live near St. Louis, your hospital gown, the room, and the baby blanket in The Quiet Contemplater's photo - I'm also pretty sure that we delivered in the exact same hospital. So there's that similarity too.
ReplyDeleteNMOTB, I have tried to find how to email you about thirty ways through each of our sites, but I suck. If you can find mine on here, have at it. Ha!
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ReplyDeleteYou, of all people, will appreciate that my water broke as we were walking into a bar (I say restaurant when telling the story to all others...). And not a TGIF kinda bar but a TOTAL redneck bar. My husband told me that was the only way we were going to eat that day. I got out of the car and gush. My husband thought I was lying. When he saw I wasn't he ran INSIDE the bar to tell everyone that we wouldn't be coming in. (They didn't know we were there.) So, a bunch of drunk a$$ ppl came out to congratulate me. Just what you want when you feel like every ounce of liquid is gushing down your legs.
ReplyDeleteI am eternally jealous! That is awesome!
Deletei dont think i had contractions. i was leaking bby juice for a like a day but stupid nurses were like your fine, its probably just pee...and i was like, yeah no. i know pee when i see pee. a holes. so i went home and i slept. i woke up at like 8 am and was like oh my back hurts. im gonna take a shower. as im getting in the shower my disgusting baby juice leaked every where (aka broken water) and then i was like shit. i called bbydaddy to pick me up cuz the day before was 4th of july and he was a douche who wanted to chill with his friends "one last time before the baby" (bullshit) and then he picks me up (in his sisters old ass corrolla mind you...like a fkn 3x4 box...wtf) and records me on his stupid cell phone the whole way there. and i was annoyed as shit cuz at this point im in pain. like fuck you go die pain. so i get to the dr and the nurse is like or your probably just exaggerating blah blah blah. i proceed to get fisted by that bitch (who i wanted to murder) and find out that oh shit, look at that, im not exaggerating. im dilated to 6cm. ok, your allowed to be in pain. and then bam, epidural and then like 45 minutes later baby. i watched oprah. they gave me a button to push when my epidural wasnt strong enough. after 7 months of not drinking/smoking i pushed the shit out of that epidural. i was sure stitch up my vaj, i cant even feel that shit.
ReplyDeletebest part. they put my baby on my fat naked body and she poo'd all over me. they didnt even clean her cheese off first, so there was poo and cheese all over my paralyzed naked body (cuz i used the shit out of the epidural i had no feeling in my legs for like 4 hours)