Every Day Effort: August 2014

Hey All!

I want to add a disclaimer to this blog post. If you are pregnant now for the first time, or if you plan on becoming pregnant and pushing a huge bowling ball out of your hoo-ha in the near future, this blog post MAY be a little scary for you. Only because what I thought would be a normal labor and delivery ended up scarring me as if I was the token white girl in the beginning scene of a horror movie. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

My baby was supposed to be due on July 27th and boy was I ready for her to come! I was swollen and large and just generally uncomfortable. I had lost feeling in my hands due to pregnancy induced carpal tunnel, (which I still have and am pissed about the loss of sensation in my fingers) I had heartburn that made it nearly impossible to sleep, my feet had finally swollen up to the HUGE proportions which meant I could only wear flip flops and even that was tough sometimes. I was just OVER it. The pregnancy had been so easy up until the last month and I was eager to be done with it and to meet our baby. I assumed that because my pregnancy had been uneventful that my labor and delivery would follow along the same route.

Boy, was I wrong!

Fast forward to July 30th. I was now 40 weeks and 3 days into this pregnancy. This little baby was 3 days overdue and Mom was ready to just get it all over with. Baby S was clearly happy and content in my belly, not willing to drop or show any signs of wanting to come out on her own. My parents were in town waiting for this baby to be born and yet she was quite happy leaving everyone waiting on her. It was the day of my 40 week check up appointment and I was so eager to go that I told my husband to get my bags in the car "just in case" my doctor decided to admit me for induction.

At the Doctor's appointment I was diagnosed with Pregnancy Induced Hypertension. Which meant my blood pressure was high. I think it was something like 160/90. I could be totally wrong about that second number though LOL. They also did a non stress test on the baby which just meant they hooked a machine up to my belly and had me click a button every time the baby moved. This test was just to determine whether or not Baby S was still moving around normally and not showing signs of distress. Baby S was doing fine in there, but Mom was definitely showing physical signs of minor distress. I was still only effaced to 50%, dilated to just 1 but that blood pressure was something my doctor did not want to mess around with. After all, I had no prior issues with my blood pressure so he wanted to go ahead and admit me to start inducing the baby.

Around 6pm on July 30th we finally got into a hospital room and began to get acquainted with the room that, little did we know, would harbor us during the worst pain of my life! The night nurse came around 7:30 to administer the medication, called Cervidil, which is a gel capsule they insert behind your cervix to begin to "ripen" it for delivery. Ripen just means to get it soft and ready for delivery. After the Cervidil was administered, the contractions began happening about an hour later. I thought I could breathe through them and hang tight. After all, those first contractions weren't so bad right?

From about 7pm-1am the contractions continued to get more and more frequent, yet I was still showing that it I was only dilated to 1cm. I was SO uncomfortable and trying to find ways to breathe through it, but it turns out, I'm really a HUGE baby.

So there I was 1cm dilated with contractions coming on pretty regularly and I'm already begging for an epidural. My husband leaves the room because apparantly the only people allowed are doctors, nurses and patients and I am prepped for my epidural. It's a weird, painful feeling the epidural. The needle is inserted into your back between your spinal vertebraes and you have to hold absolutely still. Like, breathing isn't really allowed. You have to do this weird arch-your-back-like-a-cat thing and hold onto to the nurse while the anestheologist yells at you not to move. DUDE....I'm trying here but the needle literally feels like it is not only going through the spine and also feels like it is being pushed out the front of me as well. It SUPER hurt and it wasn't fast at all. But it did start to take effect immeadiately. My left leg began to feel like it weighed a TON but oddly enough I could still lift it up slightly. Which was the point, I suppose. However, the epidural made me extremely itchy all over. The nurse gave me a shot of benadryl but that didn't help the itching at all! I should have known when the itching stopped that there was something wrong with the epidural, but more on that later.

With my contractions ongoing but not being able to feel it, I was able to get some minor rest in. The itching did keep me semi-awake so deep REM sleep alluded me. ( To this day, I don't think I've gotten REM sleep since before the baby was born. ) At around 7am I began to feel like I had to vomit like nobodies business. I yelled at my husband to find me something, ANYTHING, to throw up in or there was going to be a mess to clean up on the floor! As I was vomiting in a trash can, the nurses switched shifts and my new nurse, Emmy, came in to me vomiting. What a nice first impression I must have made on her. ("Hi there Emmy nice to meet you, don't mind my vomiting.") Emmy decided that due to my vomiting she was going to check to see how far dilated I was. Turns out, the vomiting had broken part of my water and I was also dilated to 10cm! She administered my Pitocin to help speed up contractions and informed me we were going to begin pushing.

Now mind you, I still CANNOT feel the contractions due to the epidrual. Which means my body can't tell me WHEN to push. I have to rely on the nurse to tell me when and how long to push. So now, I've been in labor since 7pm the previous night and at around noon or 1pm ( I can't give you a specific time because honestly it was so awful I had no idea what time any of this was!) I was told to begin heavy pushing. Heavy pushing is exhausting and at some point during this heavy active labor my epidural began to wear off. I began to tire and feel hopeless, because not only can I NOT feel the contractions, but the labor seems endless. The baby's vitals are fine but she does not appear to be descending fast down the birth canal. Every push seems to take a little part of my strength and resolve away and I honestly felt like I wasn't going to be able to do it. I mean, obviously I had to finish what I started but I didn't know how I was going to do it. I honestly was thinking that I couldn't finish it and that feeling was weird. I knew this baby had to be born but the pain was so bad and uncomfortable I just wanted to quit.

40 mins to Baby S arrival: Doctor Grossman shows up. My doctor is probably the calmest guy around, nothing rattles him. I am literally sobbing and sweating and basically feeling like I was dying and he didn't seem phased at all. I can now feel everything happening "down below" and it feels like fire. That whole "Ring of Fire" saying...yeah when you have no epidural anymore, it feels like someone is taking a fire hot knife to you down there and there slowly ripping you apart. Graphic? Well I'm not sugar coating it here, this birth went from normal to traumatic rather quickly. And when I say "traumatic" that's the doctor's descriptive word that was used, not mine.

Back to delivery: there seem to be more and more people in the room after the doctor arrives. There is a bunch of nurses there for the baby, there is my nurse Emmy and the doctor, my husband, my mother and my aunt and I have no idea who else. I could care less at this point who sees what down there because all I want in the world is to get the baby out as soon as possible so the pain can subside. My husband Joel has gone silent hours before. My screaming in agony must have freaked him out because the only thing he focuses on is a rotation of ice cold rags on my head. One rag on the forehead of the distressed, laboring wife and the other in the bucket of ice. Replace and repeat cycle, saying nothing at all and looking nowhere but at my screaming head. Poor guy, in his own way, it must have been traumatic to him as well.

My mom has had to sit on the side because I told her I can’t handle it if she starts crying. Which naturally, seeing this extremely hard labor her daughter is experiencing, she is crying. My aunt has taken her place on my other leg because every push requires my legs to be held up so I can bear down.

I’m still sobbing, saying I can’t do it, the nurse is yelling at me that I HAVE to do it. She's also telling me to be quiet during the pushing cause apparantly grunting is not allowed. I definitely am not in the mood to be told what to do anymore so at this point I kind of hate her. ( no offense Emmy)

I give my consent to give the dreaded episiotomy (which I no longer care about I just want this child out of me RIGHT NOW) The pain is now unbearable. I don't think I can do it! I began to think dying might be preferable to this Ring of Fire pain. Seriously... I remember thinking that dying might be preferable to what I was enduring at that moment.

After a few more attempts at pushing, Doctor Grossman asks if I want the vacuum to assist with delivery. I say "I have NO IDEA ask my mom" because I cannot be expected to make a decision. I don't even know my own name at the moment. If you ask me any sort of question, I no longer am Amy anymore, I'm merely a woman driven by instinctual labor. I'm very cavewoman-esque in my mind, there are no coherent lines of reason, no thoughts. All there is, is a drive to continue to deliver my child into this world.

To answer the doctor's question,my mom asks if he would do it for his daughter, he says yes. So vacuum assist is given the go ahead.

However that vacuum this is done, its done while I’m pushing this giant 13” head out of a tiny little hole. I feel all 13” of her head. It’s the most intense pain I've ever felt. It’s incredible pressure, and fiery pain in your lady parts and I HATE Eve for eating that forbidden fruit off the tree in the Garden of Eden.

Once Baby S's HUGE DOME is out, I'm still left with the task of delivery the rest of her long ass body. I can’t imagine how I am going to do the rest of her body because I’m literally screaming as loud as I can and saying “I can’t do it! I can’t do it!”

After the worst pain of my life, Baby is out but there is something wrong. There is no crying, baby is not THROWN onto my chest like in all the videos. The NICU nurses rush her to the warmer and no one is saying anything. I’m still in incredible pain because Doctor is working on delivering placenta and sewing episiotomy up and Emmy is basically jumping on my stomach to get my uterus to contract and get blood clots out. (UM….fundal massage is equally as awful as delivery pain wise!) But I still know something is wrong with my baby because my mom and aunt are quiet and not saying a word.

Turns out Savannah was born with the cord wrapped around her neck, she was completely white and not pink, she wasn't crying and she was “depressed”. Her Apgar scores were 3/5 meaning she was listless and not flailing like a baby should be. She was brought to me to see and she was the cutest baby but it was clear that she was in need of medical attention so she was whisked away. I forced Joel to go with her, I didn't want her without one of us and since my legs were still wide open and lady parts were being worked on, she needed him. She was taken to the NICU while I was being worked on.

Savannah Rose Shock was born at 8lbs 10oz, 21” long at 3:10 on July 31^st 2014. I labored for 23 hours to bring her into the world. The doctor said afterwards I probably should have a c section with any future children due to the fact my body was way too small for this child to have been born. Her birth is deemed a “traumatic birth” for both mother and baby.

I don’t get to see my baby for almost 6 hours after she is born. I don’t get to hold her until 9:00pm in the NICU. She has IV’s in her arms to provide hydration and is on two different antibiotics. Her sugar levels are super low, her white blood cell count is also low, and she’s being bottle fed formula. It’s a mother’s worst fear to see her newborn baby, the baby she has carried with love for 9 months, hooked up to all those machines and guarded by a NICU nurse.

However, she’s still the cutest baby I've ever seen. The love I feel for her rivals no other. No one can ever explain the love of a child, it’s just something you have to “go through”. And yet I feel other emotions, like guilt and sadness, as if maybe if I had a c section much earlier my baby would be much healthier. I know it’s not my fault but as a mother it’s my job to protect her from the start and my child’s first moments in this world were scary. I felt like I failed her already and I swore I would do everything in my power to get out of the NICU and get her home ASAP so I could make it up to this sweet innocent baby.

I end up staying a full 48 hours in the postpartum rooms because I had a slight infection the first night as well. I had the chills and the sweats the first night postpartum and was given an antibiotic. I was never told what I had but the antibiotic fixed it right away.

The baby and I are released finally on August 2^nd to go home.

Baby Savannah is doing fine now. She's now just shy of a month old and she is almost 10lbs already! She eats like a horse, poops like one too, and is a bit stingy with smiles but she's the best baby I could ask for. Being a mother is the hardest job in the world, one that you can't fully understand the degree of difficulty until you become a mother yourself. I was a nanny, I know how demanding children can be. But until you become a mother, until you are solely responsible for another human being's survival and welfare, you cannot understand how difficult is really is.

Here's our girl!

1 day old and in NICU

All hooked up. No new mom wants to see their baby like this. It makes me feel like I did something wrong and I did this to our baby. I know now it wasn't my fault, but the guilt remains there just the same.