Delivery

Last: Labor

Delivery

Once I got up to the delivery room, I knew things were about to get real.

Also, check this place out. It was dangerously close to the size of my apartment.

Fancy.

Anyway, first order of business was to get my epidural.

The anesthesiologist came into the room and asked me a bunch of medical questions before sticking that needle in my back, but as soon as he did, it was instant relief. I felt a warm wave rush through my lower body and my legs got tingly. I laid back down.

"Did you feel that?" the nurse asked, looking at one of the monitors.

"Feel what?" I asked.

She smiled. "You had a contraction."

DON'T CARE, DON'T FEEL IT. World is happy again.

...And then, it wasn't.

After maybe two hours (90 min.? one hour? I lost track of time), I started feeling my contractions again. They weren't bad, but they were definitely there -- and they shouldn't have been. Even though I kept clicking my little re-up dosage button as often as it would let me, nothing seemed to help. The anesthesiologist was called back to up my dosage. Dave called me his "little Lindsay Lohan."

Upping my dosage just seemed to make my left leg more numb, not really alleviate the contraction pain. But I waited it out and finally told the nurse that I was still feeling contractions. She wondered if the epidural tube got kinked. We called the anesthesiologist back to change the concentration of the medication, which did seem to help (again, numbed the shit out of my left leg).

At this point, the nurse determined that I was fully dilated and ready to push. It was around 8:30pm.

And so I pushed.

For 3.5 hours.

Dave and Med Student Ryan (hi, Ryan, my name is Lisa and here's my hooha) each held a leg as I pushed through the contractions. Surprisingly, delivery wasn't painful. It was just exhausting.

And then, at 11:55pm, Ava FINALLY made her debut.

They placed her on my chest, but only for about 15 seconds before they needed to grab her and suction fluid out of her lungs (she didn't immediately cry). They cleaned her up and gave her back to me.

And, yes, that's what 20 hours of labor looks like. Oy.

(TMI, but I didn't tear whatsoever. Super lucky on that front.)

After delivery, you're kept in the delivery room for two hours so they can monitor you. Except for me being so tired I couldn't see straight, everything was fine there... until I got transferred to postpartum.

Next: Postpartum drama

Labor

No surprise that I haven't found a lot of time to come back to the blog, but in the midst of my sleep deprivation, I wanted to get down the story of Ava's birth.

It can be broken into three parts -- labor, delivery, postpartum.

Labor

At 4am on Tuesday, the 20th, I woke up with contractions. They weren't bad and they weren't like anything I'd ever felt before. (Each one starts mildly, then ramps up, then fades -- lasts about 45 sec. to a min.) They were coming about every 10 minutes, so I woke Dave up and let him know that we'd be heading to the hospital at some point that day.

We paged the on-call doc, who told us to sit tight until the contractions were closer to 5 minutes apart. So, we waited. I walked around the apartment. Occasionally with my computer.

Soon, the contractions were closer. (Yes, there's an app for that.)

And more painful.

So, after speaking with my doctor's nurse, we left for the hospital around 9:30am.

We arrived in triage where the big question was, "Do you feel like you need pain medication yet?" I thought about it and decided I could tough it out for a bit more. DO NOT DO THIS. GET THE PAIN MEDICATION AS SOON AS THEY OFFER IT.

As I waited in triage, the contractions quickly became insufferable. Even harder to tolerate than the green hospital gown.

After working through them for what felt like forever, I was finally transferred to the delivery room. It was 1pm. I was anxious, terrified and desperate to get things going, all at once.

Next up: Epidural magic/mishap, baby's debut

So, insomnia is creeping back

Last night:

11:15pm: Begin reading about contractions.

11:34pm: WAS THAT A CONTRACTION? ...No, and on that note, it's probably time to stop reading about contractions.

11:36pm: Go back to reading about contractions -- specifically, the stories of women who said they didn't feel much pain during labor. I like that. Let's do that, Baby.

11:54pm: So many preggos seem jealous when they hear about another preggo being 4cm dilated and not feeling any contractions. I'm too ignorant to feel lucky, but maybe I should...

12:04am: Start making a list of TV shows I should start watching for the upcoming sleepless nights. So far: Orange is the New Black, The Mindy Project, Girls. What else?

12:09am: Get lost in all things Buzz Feed.

12:50am: Get control of yourself and try to go to bed.

1:30ish probably: Fall asleep sitting up. (Thanks, heartburn!)

Progress

No labor yet, but according to the doc, I'm now 4cm dilated (and 50% effaced, whatever that means).

My super-awesome doctor is on call Friday and Saturday, so she giddily offered to "muck things up" during today's exam to try and get the ball rolling. I told her to go for it.

When I got home, I Googled ways to naturally encourage labor. I'm guessing 99% of it is horseshit, but I liked the suggestion of drinking red raspberry leaf tea. I just had a cup and made some more into iced tea for when Linds and I have our deck date later. Perhaps a glass of red wine is on the agenda too. (Hey, relaxing is encouraged at this stage, you know?)

Many of the other labor-inducing ideas (drinking castor oil, shoving some primrose oil up your hooha, getting acupuncture) are all way too absurd, so I'll just stick with ideas that don't make me vomit, cringe or pass out.

Weekend countdown

Labor is quickly approaching. Possibly very quickly.

FRIDAY, AUG. 2 
9:45am: Doctor tells me I'm 3cm dilated.
1:00pm: I lose my mucus plug. Maybe? Google seems to think so. Also, ew.
6:30pm: Take the dogs to the park and walk all over Home Depot.
8:00pm: Collapse on the couch because walking is hard. :(

SATURDAY, AUG 3 
6:45am: Wake up for no good reason.
8:00am: WHY WON'T MY LAPTOP CHARGE ALL OF A SUDDEN. Rage.
8:24am: Was that a contraction? ...No, just Braxton Hicks.
7:00pm: Walk to dinner. Does walking induce labor? Because I should stop that.

SUNDAY, AUG. 4 
7:00am: Still can't sleep in. This is tragic.
7:01am: Remember that I just had a dream where my water broke at 5:14am. Psychic?
11:30am: Baby feels realllly heavy. And low.
11:45am: Start making a playlist of random songs for labor.
12:00pm: Bored with that. Abandon playlist.
5:00pm: Happy that baby has at least waited until Al got back in town.