Reverb 10: Day 3 prompt

Dec. 3: Moment: Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors). (Author: Ali Edwards)

This one's easy. The birth of my son. The birth of a child quite literally takes a second, I'm not talking about the hours of labor beforehand. One second a baby is still in the womb and the next not. It's kind of crazy when you think about it. But, for the purposes of this post I think I should start at the beginning of my birthing experience.

I was admitted into the hospital on May 23rd at about 8:00, it took probably another half hour to an hour to get settled and whatnot. An old friend of mine from high school was actually my nurse on Sunday Night, although she wasn't the one to actually check me. Although I was starting to dilate on my own already, my doctor thought it best that I go in the night before for "cervical ripening" to make my induction go a little smoother. So, starting at about 9:00 I had a small pill inserted into my cervix every 3 hours. It really really sucked. I was not allowed to get up for two hours after the pill was inserted, which, if you've ever been pregnant you know is absolute torture to not be allowed to pee for 2 whole hours! Of course, I also wasn't allowed to drink anything so that part got better as the night went on. Also, due to my condition my blood pressure was taken every hour, on the hour ALL NIGHT and they took blood twice. This is all while Daren slept peacefully on the futon in our hospital room. :p

By 6:30 in the morning, I'd dilated to about a 2 which wasn't quite as much progress as they would have liked apparently but enough. I was tired, but excited. My old high school friend's shift was over at 7 and my new nurse introduced herself to me as Carla. She was awesome. She was sitting on my bed shortly after 7 explaining to me that when my doctor did her rounds that morning she was going to come in and break my water and then I would get put on pitocin to induce labor. I was physically uncomfortable (as all 39 weeks pregnant women are) and adjusted how I was sitting then BAM a gush of warm wetness. I think I must have had a look of confusion or surprise on my face, or both because Carla immediately said "What just happened?" My water had broken on its own, which was pretty awesome, having someone stick a crochet hook into me didn't sound pleasant at all.

It didn't feel like I was peeing, like everyone seems to say. At least, I've never peed like that, I'm pretty sure I'd be wholly concerned if I ever did. After the initial gushiness, every time I moved, laughed or coughed more gush would come out. I'm not gonna lie, it was super gross. Not so much the liquid because that was clear and had the viscosity of water but all kinds of goo comes with it. They don't really tell you that part. The movies just show a puddle of water on the floor and sure that's what happened initially but never once have I seen a mucus plug on the floor next to the puddle in any movie. I made Carla laugh every time I said "ick" or "ew, gross" when she would quickly whisk away any goo. I always knew labor would hurt but I really had no idea how icky it can be as well. And this was normal! I wasn't having any hemorrhaging or whatever, it was all totally normal. And gross, totally gross.

After that, the pain came quickly and intensely. They checked me almost immediately after my water broke and I had gone from a two to a five within 30 minutes due to my water breaking. I'd been having mild, ignorable contractions all night but as soon as my water broke it was like waves of pain crashing over me. They started me on a pitocin drip but because my contractions were already at less than one minute apart they took me off of it after about 10 minutes. They said I was having what they called rolling contractions, I would have a constant stream of them where I'd have 6 or 7 or 8 contractions in a row that never went down to baseline, then I'd have about a minute break and do it again. I had two sensors on my belly, one to measure the baby's heart beat and the other to measure the contractions. They also started taking my blood pressure every 10 minutes, which consequently was setting off alarms every time.

I always kind of thought I'd be a screamer, that I'd yell at my husband and curse the world during labor but I really wasn't. The next couple of hours were kind of a blur. I was supposed to get an epidural quickly but the anesthesiologist had to do an emergency c-section on another patient so I had to endure natural labor for 2-3 hours. Which, was 2-3 hours too many. I know many women choose to do natural, drug free child birth but I was not one of them. Carla kept telling me to focus on the breathing that I learned in class and in a panic I told her that I had to cancel my class because I was put on bed rest and I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO BREATHE! So she showed me what to do and I latched onto it. I also latched onto, with a white knuckle grip, the rails on the hospital bed. I'm pretty sure Daren was there looking worried, but that wasn't really on my mind.

Finally, I got my epidural and was able to relax. My mother in law arrived at the hospital while I was getting it actually, which was super embarrassing. The hospital staff sent her down to our room, which really, they shouldn't have. Nurse Carla came to the rescue and shooed her out before she saw anything. My own mother came sometime while I as getting my cervix checked, which was almost as bad. I watched the output on the computer screen of my contractions. It seemed like never ending peaks and few valleys, and I couldn't feel a thing. I took comfort in listening to my son's steady heartbeat and managed to sleep for an hour or so.

My OB visited me several times, during one, I have no idea what time, she felt that my contractions were appearing too intense and was worried that Zach wasn't tolerating it. So they took the sensors off my belly and stuck two internally. She also gave me an O2 mask and made me wear it the whole time, I'm pretty sure it's because she knew I was on the verge of a panic attack.

So, lets recap. I had a blood pressure cuff, an IV, an Epidural (which they stick in your back and you have a tube with a constant stream of medicine running into), A Catheter, two internal sensors (you can guess where THOSE were put) and an O2 mask. I felt like a science experiment, no really, I did.

Somewhere around noon, the panic started to rise. My epidural was wearing off and the pain was worse than ever. All of the amniotic fluid was gone and Zach was compressing his umbilical cord. I quickly progressed to a "stretchy nine" and Zach was not tolerating the contractions well at all. I had at least three nurses in my room at all times at this point, my dr had checked me twice because they were worried I would need to push at any second. I was put into all kinds of different positions, even on my knees to try to take pressure off of Zach's cord. Remember this whole time I was having intense contractions that were less than 1 minute apart. I also started to feel this deep pressure on my pelvis. Zach's heart beat was crashing down to almost nothing (to me it seemed like it WAS nothing) and setting off alarms, my blood pressure was setting off other alarms, I had more tubes coming out of my body than should be possible and I, quite literally, had spotlights pointed at my girly parts.

I was finally able to get a boost to my epidural which calmed me down considerable. Although, because we'd finally found a way for me to lay (tilted slightly to the right) that wouldn't send Zach into distress the epidural only spread to one side of my body. My right leg went COMPLETELY numb, so much so that I couldn't move it, feel it or anything it was a dead weight. My left side was still feeling pretty much everything, a very very odd sensation that. Still, it was enough to dull the pain as a whole and help me calm down a bit.

When they checked me again about 2 I was finally at a complete 10 with no sign of a cervix and I started pushing. Apparently for new mom's, this is supposed to take awhile. Zach really wanted to get out. After a short 20 minutes, Carla, sounding almost in a panic herself told me to stop pushing because Zach was crowning. Daren was holding one of my legs up and another nurse was holding my other. I remember I said "WHAT?" like them asking me to stop pushing was the stupidest thing ever because how can you do that? WTF? STOP? My contractions were pushing him out without my help and there wasn't anything I could do about that. So Nurse Carla donned her gloves and was ready to catch the baby while we prayed that my OB would get there asap. Ten minutes of complete AGONY she was there and told me to push again. I made noises of pure effort and determination, almost like what I imagine an Amazon would sound like as she goes to battle. After a couple contractions my OB says to me "Stop screaming and focus!" So, I shut up and had Zach with the next push.

One second he was still inside and then he was a squirming, screaming, wet mass of pink flesh on my chest. It wasn't something I was able to process right away. I was crying then, and I hadn't at all up to that point, I could barely see him through my tears but he was beautiful. He was yelling like he was mad at the world, and he probably was. He was slick with blood and fluids but I didn't notice or care at that point. They took him away to check his vitals and who knows what else for a few minutes. I was shaking like a leaf, completely uncontrolled shaking. All of the adrenaline suddenly left my system. I also suddenly was starving and remembered that I hadn't had anything to eat since 7:00 the night before (Zach was born at 2:59 pm).

They wiped him down and gave him back to me and we cuddled for over an hour. My OB delivered the afterbirth and stitched me up and I never noticed. I DID notice when they turned off the spotlights because really, those were like having one of those bright dentist lights shining down on your unmentionables.

He was born a perfectly healthy and beautiful baby (still is!) and I won't get into the wonder i felt because I'll save that for the WONDER prompt. Suffice to say, giving birth was the single most terrifying experience of my life. It was also the most wonderful.