My Birth Story - Rated G

At 41 weeks exactly, we went to the midwife to do a biophysical on the baby, which is essentially an ultrasound that checks on various things, to make sure everything's cool, that there's no need to panic and induce.
Well, my kid wasn't practice breathing, which is normally totally fine, but it was test time and they wanted to see that he could. So they poked and prodded and, in general, harassed the baby until he started breathing. Cool. Whatever. Did that have effects on the rest of this story? I don't know.
What I do know is that night my contractions which had never hurt me before, became back labor pains.
Back labor = not good
Just in case you didn't know or couldn't deduce.
So we waited and timed and what not and came to the hospital the next evening when we were about 3-5 minutes apart for at least 1 minute (be thinking more like 2...) for more than an hour.
I can listen and follow directions despite what my kindergarten teachers said about me!

We took a last minute picture at the house before we left.

Our present residence

The day before delivery belly shot

We get all the way to the hospital, 

(which for some reason didn't have a pre-registration system set up, so I had to figure out where to go and no one believed me when I said I wasn't being induced. ("Are you here to be induced?" "No." "You're here to be induced?" "No." "Why are you here?" "To have a baby..." It was ridiculous.) And no one understood where I was supposed to go even though I told them. And it took forever to be admitted. And then! to....)

find out we're not in active labor yet. Lame. But we were told that we shouldn't go home. It's been long enough after the due date and the back labor was noteworthy enough that I should hang out. The word c-section was mentioned with concern, so we got right down to making it to active labor. Because you can totally just will these things to happen. (Sure why not.) 2 hours later I was!! 

Then, many hours later, I hadn't progressed at all. 

Either my contractions weren't strong enough or the baby was too big. So the first step was dose me up with Pitocin (a drug to induce labor) which is known to be beyond painful, and after having gone over 12 hours in back labor, many of which were active labor, all night long, we decided to get the epidural. Then she told me that I needed an IV.

I did have a minor emotional breakdown then. The staff was really confused why I was so distraught at the idea when I taking everything like a champ for so long. My only other time getting an IV was during my D&C. I felt like I had failed again. (Because, you know, I was an emotional, hormonal, exhausted, pained woman who was told her plan wasn't going to work.) The midwife assured and reassured me that I had done well. That I had fought long and hard without anything to show for it and that was impressive in and of itself. 

So they shot me up. 

Now, I have an issue with experiencing numbness.... Namely? I hate it. So I wasn't in love with this epidural thing. But the contractions went by without my noticing until transition. Which was a nice change in pace and gave me a time to rest before transition. During that time, the pressure and the urge to push were very noticeable

Even just two days later it's hard to believe I was that big...

 The other problem was that the kids head was turned so he was looking at my side instead of my back, His ridiculously large head wasn't able to help me progress in labor with gravity backing it. So we needed to turn him. In order to do that, they cut off the circulation(? who knows whether or not I could feel my leg anymore. The epidural made everything numb. But I certainly felt like it was cutting off the circulation!) of one leg by placing a huge exercise ball shaped like a peanut on top of it and propping my other leg up on the ball. And somehow that managed to do the trick.

Doesn't this look like it would kill my lower leg? Yes. The answer is yes. 

There was a peanut shaped exercise ball between my legs to help turn the baby's head.

When my mom arrived, the midwife went on and on about how well he took care of me. She did not overstate. 

So after a few other positions and just some general waiting on contractions, I finally got through transition and was ready to push. 

This isn't pushing. This is the pressure of the contractions.

So what does pushing look like?

My mother and photographer was recruited to hold my leg as I pushed, so there are no further pictures of that subject matter. For better or worse... idk. 

They asked me if I wanted a mirror. 

Um. No. That's ok. Pretty sure I'm not looking so hot...

And then they told me to push. 

Generally, women under epidurals take two hours of pushing. I took half an hour. My midwife had changed to this Nigerian woman who kept going on about how I was such a strong woman in that nice accent. Let me tell you, in that accent you'll believe just about anything. 

For instance, I believe her when she told me that tugging on a sheet would be a good idea. I was supposed to hold the center and she would hold the two ends and throw her weight into the tug of war contest that randomly commenced in the middle of my labor. 

Great, now I'm going through labor and my hands hurt because the sheet cut into them. Awesome.  

But eventually the kid came out. They told me not to push. Something about projectile babies being a weapon and not permissible on hospital grounds... I don't know, I was pretty drugged up.

But they did keep telling me to look. So I'd look and there'd be this huge creepy bluish thing covered with whiteness coming out of me. So naturally, I'd look away. 

"Look, look!"

I'd look again. The scene had not become any less nauseating. 

No, thanks, nurse. 

So then they hand me this thing. 

Now, it may have been the drugs, but I have heard other moms speak of similar sentiments. They handed me that thing and I was just like: what is this? why are you handing this to me?

Drug induced confusion

Fatherhood awe

Still confused

Still awed

Both reactions together now

"Oh! My husband is happy!"

"Yay! We're kissing now!"

And then Jacob cut the cord. 

He was about as equally unimpressed with the "magic" of his moment as I was with mine. 

But still pretty stoked about the whole thing....

Baby James was starting to adapt a normal coloration and I was becoming more inclined...

And then they took him to a corner of the room to be weighed. 

Jacob asked me if I wanted him to stay with me. 

Of course, I want you to stay with me! I know you like that creepy looking huge thing for whatever reason, but you need to stay with me. 

So Jacob stayed and everybody else left, because no one's really interested in the mother after the baby comes out. 

And then he was weighed.

Aww... That's a way more attractive face!
(At the present point of the story, I was still confused.)

Now, this whole time, I was just in a state of: what? what is this? what did I go through this for? what is this thing?

And then they called out to me. 9lbs and 9 oz

And I lost it. 

That's what I had worked so hard for. 9lbs and 9 oz of baby that I carried for 10 months, that was reluctant to descend, reluctant to engage, but was here now.

Now, I was holding him. 

Ok, I don't look much more enthusiastic, but I'm also on drugs, so....

Daddy finally got his chance to hold the 9lbs 9oz bundle of joy

And that will be his life for the next very very long time. 

Baby James!!

So, yeah, that's my story. Without all the nitty gritty details that, frankly, I don't even want to know about....

I'm recovering well. We asked to leave the hospital the next day, and everyone was super chill about that until the last midwife to come on shift... who had spent all of five minutes with me and decided I was being incredible irresponsible for leaving so soon???

"Why?" And seriously, she made my confidence waver and I had my listening ears turned on to see what she had to say. 

"The first days home are hard!" "...how does delaying it help?"

"There won't be nurses to take care of you!" "Or to disrupt my sleep.... and I'm feeling great."

"You said your kid didn't latch great!" "Yeah, I'm not impressed but the lactation consultants seem to think it's ok."

And so on. 

It boiled down to "that's not how we do it" and I don't give that much weight. 

So we went home. 

Things have been great. This pregnancy ordeal was obviously just the beginning, but we're all doing well.