On Monday, October 26th, 2020 my fiancé and I woke up knowing that between 4:00-6:00pm, the hospital was going to call us in to being our induction. Neither of us got much sleep that night out of pure excitement to meet our little one, and we were completely okay with that. I spent the majority of that day cleaning up around the house, washing all the dishes and laundry, and preparing for our new addition to make his appearance. My fiancé worked half a day (partly to make money, partly to keep him distracted). I was on cloud nine all day long, nothing could bring me down.
But then four o'clock came around. Then came five o'clock. Six o'clock. By seven, I'd started to become frustrated.
Let me note that throughout the last month of my pregnancy, I had already been experiencing severe contractions with only 1cm of dilation. Contractions that were no more than 5 minutes apart from each other, sometimes quite painful and uncomfortable. Having a date scheduled for my induction was a "light at the end of the tunnel" kind of thing for me - knowing that the end was near and there was a countdown towards relief (as well as welcoming our son to the world) is what helped me through the days leading up to delivery.
And while the doctors chose the date to schedule the induction (@39 weeks), it just so happened to be the day before my 28th birthday - which meant that my precious baby boy was going to be my very own birthday gift! I was beyond ecstatic to know that I'd get to share my birthday with the greatest gift I would ever receive.
Or... so I thought.
I was that person who called the hospital every few hours to get an update on the situation. The nurses knew me by name, knew exactly where I stood on the waitlist, and probably had my phone number memorized by the end of it all. Apparently there were a lot of laboring mothers in Tallahassee within that 24-72 hour period. I couldn't be upset about that, but I was. I won't deny that.
The next day came, which was my birthday, and I spent the entire day pouting around the house. I'm sure it was obnoxious. My poor fiancé tried to do everything he could to make it a good day - took me out to breakfast, went for a nice walk with me hand-in-hand, ordered in a delicious birthday dinner, consoled me throughout my continuous contractions, and most importantly dismissed all my complaining and negativity. It didn't help that we were in the middle of a pandemic, unable to spend time with friends or really go out anywhere. I stuck close to my phone all day, hoping we'd get a call from the hospital. Which we did not. We went to bed early, hoping that the sooner we fell asleep the sooner we'd get the call. And we did.
On Wednesday, October 28th, 2020 at 1:25am we were called into the hospital for our induction. Needless to say, I have never jumped out of bed faster than I did that morning. We were FINALLY going to meet our baby boy!
We got to the hospital, checked in, and by 3:30am the Cervidil was in and we were ready for that cervix to start dilating! The contractions I was having prior to admission only got worse within the next few hours, but my cervix was not dilating as fast as it should, so the doctors had to take out the Cervidil and let my body "do the rest of the work". Now, if you've been induced before you know that this is a less-than-ideal situation. Simply put, my uterus was ready to pop out that baby (with severe contractions every 1.5-2 minutes) but my cervix was not. We hadn't even started the medication that was supposed to induce the labor contractions yet! Needless to say, it was a very uncomfortable and painful next several hours (which felt like days).
I'd been on a liquid diet since the start of induction, which was better than nothing but still not nearly enough for a 9-month-pregnant woman. Luckily for me, after the third all-liquid meal a nurse slipped me an amazing cheeseburger. Little did I know that right after eating that heavenly burger, the fun was about to begin.
At this point it was close to 8:30pm, and the doctor told the nurse to start getting me ready for pushing. My contractions were extremely painful and I'd not started the Pitocin yet because I was still only 3cm with these full active labor contractions. They were thinking of skipping the Pitocin altogether with the way my body was progressing on it's own, which made me feel both impressed (with how I was handling the contractions) and nervous for what was to come when it was time to really start pushing. The nurse offered me Stadol and, not knowing any better, I said "yes please!". Bad idea.
Stadol, for those of you who don't know, is a narcotic that is used to treat moderate to severe pain. When the nurse suggested this, I thought it would just ease the pain - not completely knock me out! This medicine made it impossible to keep my eyes open, maintain a conversation with my fiancé, and slowed the whole process down. Had I known I was going to be given the epidural as soon as I'd recovered from the Stadol, I would've bypassed it completely. But instead, I was high as a kite for about three hours.
And then, finally, a beautiful thing we like to call the epidural. I will never understand why a woman would refuse to have one, but I can respect those who do. Go you! But after what felt like an eternity suffering from those intense contractions - it was wonderful to see my contractions on the monitor and not feel a thing. Finally some relief.
An hour later, the doctor came in to break my water. Shortly after that, it seemed like we were progressing quickly. I'd started dilating more, contractions eased up a little, and the doctor was betting on delivering around 3:00am. But of course, nothing about this delivery went as planned.
Shortly after breaking my water, they started noticing the baby's stats were less than stellar so I had to go on oxygen for awhile. Nothing too scary, thank God. But enough to make momma-to-be a little concerned. The epidural apparently had made contractions slow down a little more than they'd liked, so my doctor started me on small amount of Pitocin to pick things back up. And boy did it work.
For the next 10 hours I was in what you'd call active labor, though it didn't feel quite so "active". Every hour, I would spend about 30-45 minutes pushing and would follow it with an hour of rest (which consisted of being propped up by a peanut ball and regularly being flipped by nurses like a rotisserie). Being my first time in labor, every time we did this I had no idea if it was "time" or if it was just practice for the real thing. It wasn't until I heard my fiancé say that he could see our baby's hair that I knew we MUST be getting close. But where was the doctor? Where was the other person who needs to rate my baby's APGAR once he comes out? Who's catching?
While my baby's head was "right there", we still had another three hours or so of pushing to go before he finally popped out. I knew it was time when they asked to page for the doctor. Mind you, by now I was experiencing what they call the ring of fire. If you don't know what that is I suggest you google it beforehand - I wish I had. All I can say is: no medication can protect you from the pain. But the good news is: once you've reached that point there is nothing else standing in the way of you meeting your little one! And after about 15 minutes of my little one crowning, the next thing I knew he was in my arms and my fiancé was cutting the cord. Instantly I'd forgotten about the amount of pain I was in at the very end. There were so many people in the room at this point, all of which I'd not even noticed until now, and the only thing I could hear was my baby's first cry and my fiancé words: you did it. And suddenly, we were a family. Just like that we became parents. The amount of tears that streamed down my face was probably embarrassing, but all I can remember is having an uncontrollable amount of joy pouring out of me. I could not stop crying. Everything I'd ever dreamed about was right there in front of me - my baby boy was in my arms and my life was complete. It was beautiful.
It's funny, when you ask women who have endured labor in the past what to expect... they typically say something along the lines of "just remember it's temporary, you'll get through it". But that doesn't really answer the question, does it? They don't tell you that the intensity of contractions can vary from person to person, where for some it might be excruciating and for others it might just be annoying. When someone says "you'll know when you're in labor", that's not exactly true. My contractions, for example, were almost at the peak of their intensity before I even arrived to the hospital for induction - just less frequent. Some women can drive themselves to the hospital, where others can't even say a complete sentence in the midst of one. No one tells you that the doctor doesn't even enter the room until the baby is about to pop out, with the nurses and your partner doing the more difficult job of trying to keep you calm and coach you through it all. So many women tell you to get the epidural but they don't tell you that it truly is God's gift to women in labor (and that is not an exaggeration)!
The truth is, until you've experienced the beauty of labor yourself - you really won't know what to expect. And that's okay! Just know this: it will hurt, it will probably be harder than anything you've ever experienced, but it will all be worth it.
With that being said, I'm just a first-time mom who is trying to figure it all out. I'm sure many of you out there know so much more than I do, and I would love to hear about your own experiences! This blog is honestly just my way of documenting the ups and downs of parenthood - maybe to help other parents out there, or even be my own public journal. Either way, the best is yet to come and I can't wait to see what the future holds for my little family.
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