All aboard the choo choo PAIN

I am officially a new mommy. On Monday, June 22nd I went in to meet with the anesthesiologist because I discovered that I might be denied pain medication since we hadn't had a formal "sit down and sign these forms" meeting. My doctor got me the first available appointment and we went over all of the risks and benefits of various sorts of pregnancy medication techniques. Going into it, I knew that I wanted to try and have as natural of a birth as possible.

HAH!

So, I signed the forms and took my chart back over to Labor and Delivery since I was scheduled for induction later that day. Rather than going in a few hours later, they were like "Oh, we've got your bed ready so hop on in. Let's get this party started!"

Wha?

We came home long enough for me to grab my bag and get eat lunch (like, as fast as I've ever eaten in my life... they warned me that I wouldn't be able to eat for a very long time) and then we rushed back over to the hospital. The plan was to start off with cervidil to soften and stretch my cervix, add a balloon to get me to 5cm, then 12 hours later we would start the pitocin drip and, hopefully, we would have a baby within the following 24 hours.

Well, it turns out I'd been having regular contractions and just couldn't feel them. I was already dilated to 2cm and the cervidil wouldn't have done anything at that point. They inserted a balloon to stretch my cervix to 5cm so that we could start the whole labor thing.

Wow, talk about some pain. I discovered that when I'm faced with horrible debilitating pain, I start laughing. A lot. It freaked the doctor out.

So, they got the balloon in and started the pitocin so that I could fully stretch and prepare for birth. A few hours later my contractions were so bad that I was laughing through tears without any stop. I asked for IV drugs.

They gave me some awesome stuff I spent the next several hours flopping between feeling great and 'omg this is the worst pain ever kill me now'. I also slipped in and out of consciousness. I was in a drug coma, so I wasn't even really getting any rest and I was so very tired. Tension was high since everyone was really stressed out. The people that love me the most had to watch me go through horrible pain and try to pretend that everything was alright. Some of us cope with things differently than others and feelings got hurt, people got mad, and I finally asked for an epidural.

In the event that we have another child, I'm getting that thing upon admission.

I requested more IV drugs so that I wouldn't jump around when they inserted the epidural catheter and they gave me some of the best stuff I've ever had in my life. My mom was next to me, stroking my hair, talking about being on the beach and listening to the waves... physically, I was in the hospital. Mentally, I was in Tahiti. At some point, I came to realize that my brain world wasn't showing an accurate picture of what was going on and started to freak out. 'Where's my fruity drink? Get Pablo back in here, I need a massage! That's not a volcano, that's a needle!'

Fortunately, I was able to keep my surprise to myself an d I don't think anyone really noticed. Except the nurse. She could see the disappointment in my face.

I sat up and arched my back as best I could, then I leaned into My Husband for support. To try and keep myself calm and still, I made up a little song to sing and it was quite hilarious. My Husband, the nurse and the anesthesiologist were all laughing. Yeah, great idea, make the lady with the needle laugh. What could go wrong?

It was actually really great. I don't know why I was so worried about it.

At that point, I got a catheter since I wasn't going to be walking for quite some time. As much as I hate to admit it, that was pretty awesome too. I didn't have to get up to pee. I was, officially, the laziest person on earth. Then I remembered that I was having a baby and without that awesome medication, I would be in excruciating pain. Oh yeah, that's why I'm in the hospital, right?

Well, from there, things just kept getting weirder and weirder, so I ended up on oxygen. This is what My Husband and My Parents got to look at for a very long time.


Even though they hated seeing me hooked up to all of these machines, I'm sure it was much easier than watching me cry my eyes out with every contraction.

I even got my bunny to squeeze.

During one of my moments of 'not quite there' I decided that I was having my baby at 7:42pm and that it would rock since 7 is a lucky number and 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Yeah, I'm a dork.

Oddly enough, things took a turn for the worst and they had to get the baby out very quickly. It wasn't an emergency c-section, it was just done very quickly.

On my list of the 10 most terrifying moments in my life, it's definitely in my top 2.

I had one doctor sitting on my chest trying to push my baby out, one doc on my side trying to make room and several other people in various places doing stuff. My Husband was trying to keep me focused on him so that I wouldn't think about what was going on. I didn't really care because I was in an awkward position and my back was killing me. I was bawling tears from my back pain and drug lady gave me some more medication. It kind of helped. Once my baby was out, I was still in a crazy amount of pain but I knew that I couldn't even try to move. They helped as much as they could, but it still was not pleasant.

I only kind of got to see my baby because I was shaking so bad that they were afraid I was going to reach out for her. Fortunately, My Husband got to see her and cut the cord and take pictures so that I could look at them while they were cleaning her off.

There was a miscommunication and my parents were told that they were not allowed to see her.

Holy crap the world exploded.

Rather than "you can't see her", they should have said "We're going to do her assessment and vaccination now so that you can all see her at the same time."

I got to my recovery room and wanted my baby. My Husband went to go get something from My Parents and came back freaking out. "Call your parents right now because they are leaving. Like, going home, leaving..."

I lost my shit.

I went into hysterics and tried calling them repeatedly. I left messages and demanded that they call as soon as they could. The nurses told me that if I didn't calm down I was going to rip out my stitches, have a stroke, and possibly bleed to death. Did I care? No. My mommy was leaving me and I couldn't figure out what I had done.

The nurses were even like "What the heck, what happened? They seemed fine."

The anesthesiologist came in, tried to calm me down, and gave me a big hug. My parents came back and we got everything straightened out. Turns out there was just a miscommunication.

My Husband asked if they could give me a sedative so that I wouldn't hurt myself.

We got everything straightened out. At this point, the nurses were really protective and my parents were really pissed off at the nurses. I had to explain what happened and everyone calmed down.

They finally brought the baby in and we all completely fell in love with her.




Can you blame us? A few hours old and she's already a ham.





















From there, I had to stay in the hospital for several days and receive care of varying levels, ranging from '100% totally awesome' to 'why the hell am I even in the hospital? Let me die on the street'

Finally, they discharged me on Friday (after I yelled at them) and I've been doing really, really well ever since. Being at home has helped so much ( I don't have to wait 4 hours for some bitchy nurse to bring me my Percoset... I just reach over and grab it!)

There will be so many pictures to come, but for now, it's time to take a nap.