While I have a couple minutes I'll try to get my birth story done.
My water broke at 7:00pm Thursday night. I wasn't happy since my 5 year old had just come down with a fever that day. I had dh call his mom to come down, and against my better judgement I called labor and delivery to let them know. They told me to come in as soon as mil got there. She arrived at about 8:30 and we left for the hospital at about 9:00pm. I was really disappointed because I just assumed that labor would go like my other two and I would have contrax start, but my water wouldn't break until the very end. When we got to the hospital I wasn't having any real contrax, and I knew this was not going to be the type of labor I wanted.
As soon as we got there I told them that my water had broken and the nurse acted like I was an idiot and had no idea what it felt like. They must just assume that we are all so stupid that we would mistake the pop followed by the big gush of fluid as water breaking when it really must just have been our bladder.
: Trust me lady, unless my bladder burst, it was my water. She was mad because my leaking had stopped after about an hour and a half (which can happen when the babys head moved down and plugs it up) and I hadn't leaked onto the pad I had put in before we left.
She got the doctor to come and there was still a membrane there that she could feel. I told her that if they didn't think I had broken my water, I would go home. Wishful thinking as she decided to break it further in a huge gush. Gee, thanks. Now I was stuck there.
They moved me to another room and monitored me for a bit then let me get up and walk. After about an hour to hour and a half of walking I had gotten my contrax stronger like early labor contrax and was pretty happy about it. Then at about midnight I asked if I could just sleep for a while, just an hour cause I was beat. They wanted me back on the monitors so I had to rest with them on. Unfortunately, they didn't get the contrax monitor on right and it wasn't picking them up. At 1:00 am the doctor came back in and said that it was time to start pitocin. I told her "no it isn't" and that I would try nipple stimulation to get things going. I said that the vast majority of women will start labor within 24 hours of their bag breaking. She said that once the waters are broken she gives women 4 hours to start making progress before starting pitocin and she had already given me six and that it was time. I told her that I didn't like the fact that every intervention leads to the next and that I didn't want an epidural. She gave me this story about how pitocin has a bad wrap and that it doesn't necessarily always lead to an epidural. Whatever.
I could see that she was getting annoyed with me, as was the nurse and I felt totally deflated, angry and like crying. I just wanted to go home. Her whole attitude was that I should deliver within 12 hours of my water breaking.
If you haven't already figured out, this wasn't my doctor on call.
At that point I had to decide whether it was worth it to piss them off. I agreed to pitocin started very slowly. I told her that I wanted it gentle like natural labor. They were like, "yeah, whatever" and hooked me up. Come to find out that the student nurse who was in charge of me (and had been out of the room when the pitocin discussion took place) was told to get my contrax to 2 to 3 minutes apart and strong, quickly. Nice of them to tell me one thing and then do another.
By around 1:30 they had the pit running. I felt totally defeated. I was so angry and depressed that this wasn't what I wanted. I was feeling really guilty because I wasn't even excited about the baby at this point. I started to wonder if we had made a mistake by having another. It was a real low point for me. The anger and the guilt were overwhelming and I was so miserable about everything. It wasn't my labor anymore.
The contrax started off nicely. Then the nurse came in and upped it. Then the got pretty hard and about 2 minutes apart, but I could still deal with them. Then they upped it again (all in the course of one hour) and it was awful. It was worse than my natural transition with my first, and even worse than my kidney stone which was worse than either of my prior labors. All I could do was scream and cry. There was no getting on top of these contrax. There is a huge difference between the contrax the body produces naturally, and those that the awful drug produces. I was so torn because I really didn't want drugs, but I just couldn't take it anymore. It's making me cry just typing this. I felt like such a failure for thinking about the epidural, but I was at the end of my rope. At 3:00 I finally decided that if this wasn't going to be "my" labor anyway, I wasn't going to live in that kind of misery for it and I asked for the "needle man" to come. He got there and did a wonderful epidural. Even the first needle barely hurt. Evidentally, he is really good. I had only one contrax while he was placing it and the relief was so fast.
Although I'm crying as I say this, getting the epidural was the best decision I could have possibly made at the time. Once I got it, I felt like at least I had taken a part of my labor back. Some part of it belonged to me again. I had some part in a decision. I was really surprised that I didn't feel bad about giving in, but just the opposite. It made me feel partially in control again. I was able to look toward delivery with excitement again. I know that sounds crazy, but it was true.
About 45 minutes after I got the epidural I could start feeling some of the contrax again down low. I waited through a few but it was getting stronger and I didn't want to pay for an epidural if I was going to be in pain again. I had Jason tell the nurses and they came in to drain my bladder and see if that helped. They went ahead and checked me while they were there. I was complete. I went from 6 to 10 in the hour since I had gotten the epidural. I really think that it allowed me to relax and feel some control again and to let my body work again without the tension I had been feeling.
They got the doctor and I started pushing. I must admit that pushing is much nicer when you can't feel it as much. After several contrax the doc told me that if she did an episiotomy he would be out with the next contraction. I asked her how long without one and she said 2 or 3. Jeez, I can wait a couple more.
I ended up with a 2nd degree tear and a small tear on my labia.
Have to nurse, more later.