It's a baby . . . July 2nd, 2012

Yep, I sure do suck at non-infertility blogging.  The pregnancy was a bit of a whirlwind.  I had my share of 'morning' sickness, but nothing as bad as with RoBet.  I had aches and pains, but nothing as bad as with RoBet.  I had a difficult delivery that was shorter than, but every bit as complicated as with RoBet.  Due to both the baby and my intolerance of the epidural and Pitocin (medicine to make contractions stronger and more effective) together, I had the epidural turned off on me midway into my labor.  There were two problems with this.  First, I was mentally not at all prepared for a med free labor and had done no preparation for it (breathing techniques, meditation, soothing music playlist, etc.).  Second, I was into some very strong contractions by the time they turned it off. So I went from barely feeling or not feeling them to 'holy shit I'm gonna' mother effing die' pain.  The pain of labor, or so I am told, is much more bearable when it comes on gradually.  I guess there was a third reason - normally your cervix opens gradually over time, at a slow and steady rate.  Not necessarily all the same speed, but a centimeter or two and hour or so.  I shot from 5 cm to 10 cm in about 15 minutes.  It really, really sucked.  I was thrashing and cursing like a wild woman.  I punched the side of the bed and may or may not have bitten a pillow.  I was thinking I had 5 hours of labor to go when they turned the epidural off, and agreed to the c-section after about 5 or 10 minutes of the pain.  The nurse had them prep the room for surgery, came and shaved my belly, and the people were there to wheel me to the   OR when I told the nurse I felt like I had to poop (which is what it feels like when baby starts coming down into the birth canal).  She and I both didn't think much off it since she had checked me only about 15 minutes, or possibly less, earlier, but she figured a final check before I headed for surgery wouldn't hurt.  I was completely dilated, effaced, and baby's head was moving down to a 0 station (meaning fully engaged in the birth canal).  Station is like this, -3 is floating, not engaged at all.  -2 is in place but not engaged.  -1 is engaged.  0 is full engaged (no going back now).  +1 is on the way down.  +2 is head is crowning and +3 means your baby is laying on the table.  My doc was 'on her way' and all of a sudden the room was full of people.  There had been merconium in my second gush of amneiotic fluid, meaning baby had pooped in it and possibly swallowed some (which can be very dangerous) so we had a NICU team in the room.  There were multiple nurses and crews of some sort running around getting the delivery tools set up.  I said I felt like I needed to push.  Nurse said, "go ahead honey, it might make you feel better to do a pBractice push.". I had my legs on the table as the stirrups were not in place yet and just gave a half assed push.  Doc was walking in right at that moment and said, "let's not do that anymore until we're ready.  You're at +2 now.". Mind you it took an hour and a half of pushing and a vaccume assist to get RoBet to a +2.  Doc and my nurse got everything ready, and I started pushing.  I pushed through about 3-4 contractions (hubby thinks it was fewer and he may be right) and out slid the baby.  From the time the epidural was turned off until baby came out was about 35-40 minutes.  Those were the most painful and frightening minutes of my life.  I seriously wanted to pass out to escape the pain.  As doc was unwrapping the cord, which was wrapped around baby's neck twice which explained why it wasn't tolerating things very well, she slid baby onto my belly and before anyone could say anything regarding the sex, I said, "penis, that's a penis".  Yep, we had our baby, and it was (well, still is) a boy!  This labor and delivery was much more dramatic than my last (at least from my perspective, since I didn't know I was on the cusp of a csection last time), and a ton more frightening, but it's over and I have my sweet baby napping on me as I type this.  Totally worth it all.