This is it, from what I remember!!
When I hit 39 weeks, I assumed that I was in labor. I had slept like crap the night before (which is nothing new), but this was a different kind of sleeping like crap. At my appointment, my OB noticed I was contracting and asked to examine me. 4cm. He assumed I was in early labor and broke the news - he wasn't on call over the weekend. I was going to be stuck having some random doctor in the practice deliver my baby. He walked me down to her office and introduced me ... to the most terrible woman I've ever met. When he told her that I was contracting regularly and already at 4cm, she looked me over and told me that if I were her patient, I'd be heading over to the hospital right then for an epidural and some Pitocin.
When I told her my plans for low intervention and no medication, she laughed and told me that I'd change my mind.
So I went home (I stopped at the salon for a haircut & eyebrow wax first!), fed Calloway lunch and put him down for a nap. I could feel the contractions, but they weren't bad and mainly in my hips, thighs and lower back. The rest of the afternoon went by pretty fast. DH's parents were supposed to watch C that night so we could go to dinner and enjoy some non-baby time, so we took him over there, grabbed some dinner and went home. DH opted to go to bed, since the contractions were becoming more frequent, and I cleaned, packed last minute things, bounced on the yoga ball and played on the internet.
At midnight, I realized that I should probably go to the hospital. We made it there shortly before 1am and were settled into our LDR room within the hour. My primary nurse was super sweet and shocked to find that I was 6cm with a bulging bag of water, with contractions coming every minute or two. J, my birth partner, showed up shortly after that and I asked to get out of bed after the first 20 minutes. It felt sooooo good to be on my feet, swaying with each. It was weird, to not really care about the pain at first. J and DH kept me talking about whatever it was that we talked about, which was awesome. They were settling me into a glider to do some monitoring when The Most Terrible Woman EVER walked in. She pushed one of the nurses out of the way and told me to "listen up, girlfriend" before letting the word vomit spew.
She told me that she wanted to break my water. She wanted things to move along and wasn't happy when I refused. She then decided to really piss me off and make up her own ACOG guidelines - threatening me that I would most certainly kill my child by not being monitored 5 out of every 15 minutes. I'm assuming that she wanted to punish me for not agreeing to let her break my water by tethering me to that damn chair. Before she left, she made sure to let me know that she would NOT be returning within the hour just to break my water and get me the order for an epidural.
So I labored there in that effing glider until 5:45ish? It was painful, but it was better than being in bed, and since the doctor followed her own personal ACOG guidelines, I was kind of stuck. (I told one nurse that I wanted her to catch my baby rather than that horrible woman and let everyone know that I didn't want her back in the room. At that point, I was willing to 'steal' someone's OB than let her come near me.) DH watched horrible headlines from Headline News and J rubbed my back and shoulders, which felt AMAZING.
I moved to the bed so the nurse could check me and I was 7cm. Water bag still bulging. I was having some EXTREMELY intense contractions at this point and complaining that I was feeling kind of nauseous. I was able to breathe and make low noises while I was contracting, but once I got on the bed, everything changed. As the nurse walked out of the room (right after checking me), I felt my body start to push. It was terrifying at first, because I had no clue what was going on. I managed to tell J to get the nurse, or maybe she asked me if she should, I'm not sure. She came flying back in, checked me in between two insane contractions, confirmed that I was 9cm - water bag in tact. She was moving to the other side of the room when that broke, quick check confirmed that I was complete and definitely having a baby. Right that second.
I was gripping the side of the bed, holding onto DH's hands, and J was behind me, still rubbing my back and encouraging me - and I was pushing. My entire body was pushing and there was NO way I could stop it. Everyone kept telling me to pant, to act like I was blowing out candles, while the OB took her sweet time getting there. She ordered me to flip over, they raised the bed up incredibly high (it was because the OB was extremely lazy - she didn't want to do much more than stand there) and put my legs in stirrups. I had absolutely NO desire to push on my back, with my legs in the stirrups and with them telling me to not push, my body was doing whatever it wanted to do. I vaguely remember kicking out at the stirrups and trying to move back onto my side, where it was much more comfortable, but I gathered my wits and pushed a good three times - relief.
Sometime in between being stuck on my back and getting my sh-t together, I heard her say, "An epidural sounds REALLY good about now, doesn't it?" and laugh. Another lovely moment was when I managed to tell her that Calloway was 9 pounds, 4 ounces and she assured me that if I had another 9 pound baby, he would get stuck ... basically telling me that I was a dumbass for opting for no pain medication. I told her that I pushed him out in 15 minutes. Her doubting my ability to give birth was extremely frustrating, to say the least.
She kept telling me to look at my baby, but where she had the bed so high, I couldn't see him. I reached for him, but she held him there, suctioning him, just out of my reach (I dunno if this was on purpose or not). He cried and she ordered that I pull down the top of my gown if I wanted to hold him and finally handed me my baby. She then pulled him away, pointed at the cord and said, "See? It's not pulsating anymore," even though it DEFINITELY was, clamped it and handed J the scissors after DH declined cutting it.
They took him over to check him out and I delivered the placenta. I had wanted to take it home but couldn't get the words out. She gave me four or five stitches (my actual OB told me that he wouldn't have given me stitches ...) and dug around, saying that she was checking for tears (this happened a few times). She kept making snarky, rude comments about the whole situation, disagreed when the baby nurse gave him Apgar's of 9/9, and they finally brought him back to me.
He was 7 pounds, 14 ounces and 21" long, born at 6:12am. Going from 7cm-10cm took about 0.7 seconds. He refused to nurse for the first 14 hours of his life, but is doing great now (he's a marathon nurser, to say the least). Recovery was extremely easy - very little soreness, very little bleeding.
If you go here - http://jesdeis.com/blog.php - and scroll down to 'Katie's Baby' you'll see some of the pictures that J got. Beautiful! She was such a wonderful birth partner and was incredibly kind to snap these for us.
When I hit 39 weeks, I assumed that I was in labor. I had slept like crap the night before (which is nothing new), but this was a different kind of sleeping like crap. At my appointment, my OB noticed I was contracting and asked to examine me. 4cm. He assumed I was in early labor and broke the news - he wasn't on call over the weekend. I was going to be stuck having some random doctor in the practice deliver my baby. He walked me down to her office and introduced me ... to the most terrible woman I've ever met. When he told her that I was contracting regularly and already at 4cm, she looked me over and told me that if I were her patient, I'd be heading over to the hospital right then for an epidural and some Pitocin.
When I told her my plans for low intervention and no medication, she laughed and told me that I'd change my mind.
So I went home (I stopped at the salon for a haircut & eyebrow wax first!), fed Calloway lunch and put him down for a nap. I could feel the contractions, but they weren't bad and mainly in my hips, thighs and lower back. The rest of the afternoon went by pretty fast. DH's parents were supposed to watch C that night so we could go to dinner and enjoy some non-baby time, so we took him over there, grabbed some dinner and went home. DH opted to go to bed, since the contractions were becoming more frequent, and I cleaned, packed last minute things, bounced on the yoga ball and played on the internet.
At midnight, I realized that I should probably go to the hospital. We made it there shortly before 1am and were settled into our LDR room within the hour. My primary nurse was super sweet and shocked to find that I was 6cm with a bulging bag of water, with contractions coming every minute or two. J, my birth partner, showed up shortly after that and I asked to get out of bed after the first 20 minutes. It felt sooooo good to be on my feet, swaying with each. It was weird, to not really care about the pain at first. J and DH kept me talking about whatever it was that we talked about, which was awesome. They were settling me into a glider to do some monitoring when The Most Terrible Woman EVER walked in. She pushed one of the nurses out of the way and told me to "listen up, girlfriend" before letting the word vomit spew.
She told me that she wanted to break my water. She wanted things to move along and wasn't happy when I refused. She then decided to really piss me off and make up her own ACOG guidelines - threatening me that I would most certainly kill my child by not being monitored 5 out of every 15 minutes. I'm assuming that she wanted to punish me for not agreeing to let her break my water by tethering me to that damn chair. Before she left, she made sure to let me know that she would NOT be returning within the hour just to break my water and get me the order for an epidural.
So I labored there in that effing glider until 5:45ish? It was painful, but it was better than being in bed, and since the doctor followed her own personal ACOG guidelines, I was kind of stuck. (I told one nurse that I wanted her to catch my baby rather than that horrible woman and let everyone know that I didn't want her back in the room. At that point, I was willing to 'steal' someone's OB than let her come near me.) DH watched horrible headlines from Headline News and J rubbed my back and shoulders, which felt AMAZING.
I moved to the bed so the nurse could check me and I was 7cm. Water bag still bulging. I was having some EXTREMELY intense contractions at this point and complaining that I was feeling kind of nauseous. I was able to breathe and make low noises while I was contracting, but once I got on the bed, everything changed. As the nurse walked out of the room (right after checking me), I felt my body start to push. It was terrifying at first, because I had no clue what was going on. I managed to tell J to get the nurse, or maybe she asked me if she should, I'm not sure. She came flying back in, checked me in between two insane contractions, confirmed that I was 9cm - water bag in tact. She was moving to the other side of the room when that broke, quick check confirmed that I was complete and definitely having a baby. Right that second.
I was gripping the side of the bed, holding onto DH's hands, and J was behind me, still rubbing my back and encouraging me - and I was pushing. My entire body was pushing and there was NO way I could stop it. Everyone kept telling me to pant, to act like I was blowing out candles, while the OB took her sweet time getting there. She ordered me to flip over, they raised the bed up incredibly high (it was because the OB was extremely lazy - she didn't want to do much more than stand there) and put my legs in stirrups. I had absolutely NO desire to push on my back, with my legs in the stirrups and with them telling me to not push, my body was doing whatever it wanted to do. I vaguely remember kicking out at the stirrups and trying to move back onto my side, where it was much more comfortable, but I gathered my wits and pushed a good three times - relief.
Sometime in between being stuck on my back and getting my sh-t together, I heard her say, "An epidural sounds REALLY good about now, doesn't it?" and laugh. Another lovely moment was when I managed to tell her that Calloway was 9 pounds, 4 ounces and she assured me that if I had another 9 pound baby, he would get stuck ... basically telling me that I was a dumbass for opting for no pain medication. I told her that I pushed him out in 15 minutes. Her doubting my ability to give birth was extremely frustrating, to say the least.
She kept telling me to look at my baby, but where she had the bed so high, I couldn't see him. I reached for him, but she held him there, suctioning him, just out of my reach (I dunno if this was on purpose or not). He cried and she ordered that I pull down the top of my gown if I wanted to hold him and finally handed me my baby. She then pulled him away, pointed at the cord and said, "See? It's not pulsating anymore," even though it DEFINITELY was, clamped it and handed J the scissors after DH declined cutting it.
They took him over to check him out and I delivered the placenta. I had wanted to take it home but couldn't get the words out. She gave me four or five stitches (my actual OB told me that he wouldn't have given me stitches ...) and dug around, saying that she was checking for tears (this happened a few times). She kept making snarky, rude comments about the whole situation, disagreed when the baby nurse gave him Apgar's of 9/9, and they finally brought him back to me.
He was 7 pounds, 14 ounces and 21" long, born at 6:12am. Going from 7cm-10cm took about 0.7 seconds. He refused to nurse for the first 14 hours of his life, but is doing great now (he's a marathon nurser, to say the least). Recovery was extremely easy - very little soreness, very little bleeding.
If you go here - http://jesdeis.com/blog.php - and scroll down to 'Katie's Baby' you'll see some of the pictures that J got. Beautiful! She was such a wonderful birth partner and was incredibly kind to snap these for us.
