Labor and Delivery

*Don't read this if you don't want to know!*

Ryan decided he wouldn't be told to come early and he wouldn't be told he was being induced. He was going to come on HIS schedule! After staying up until 6am listening to Raffi with Jake, i was awoken at 10am with a warm gush. Holy crap! Either i just peed myself or my water broke! I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom...it was definitely my water breaking. I wasn't having any strong contractions so i showered, dried my hair, put on my makeup, packed my bag, ate some breakfast, watched some tv and texted Ally. After still not having any major contractions i finally called the doctor and he said to take my time but to come in to Labor & Delivery and get checked out. I woke up Jake to tell him my water broke and was given a groggy "Seriously?" before he got out of bed and started getting ready.

We made it to L&D around 3pm and got checked in. Yep, my water definitely broke. I was hooked up to monitors and was told i was having contractions 2-4 minutes apart and 4cm dilated. I wasn't even feeling them! Maybe this labor stuff wouldn't be so bad after all... The doctor came to finish breaking my water and said i was now 5cm. Which by the way, your water doesn't just all break at once apparently. I felt like i was peeing myself all dang day after that. Things were going faster than i expected. My blood pressure was high so they did some blood work. It came back that i had low platelets, but apparently it wasn't too big of a deal because they didn't do anything about it. The doctor said Ryan was still very high up and since i was already so far along it might mean he was in an awkward position and i might end up with a c-section. I told him i wanted to do whatever we could to avoid that.

I was moved to a delivery room and the nurse said i could get my epidural whenever i wanted. I decided i'd wait as long as i could, and so i did. It didn't take very long before the contractions were killing me, and i asked them to call the anesthesiologist. I think at this point i had made it to 7cm. So far i hadn't cried and was handling the pain pretty well (the nurse seemed amazed, anyway) but i was scared of the epidural. What a joke! The epidural was *nothing*. I don't know why people freak out about it so much. The most "painful" part was the numbing agent because it burns a little being injected. I would definitely get another without batting an eye. After the epidural? Life was goooood. I couldn't feel contractions, and i got to just lay in bed and relax. Which is a good thing, because Phillip, Kristyn, Jefferey, Grandmom and Mom all showed up to entertain me. The only drawback to the epidural was that i was shivering the *entire* time. I wasn't cold, i was actually quite toasty, and it was really just annoying.

Before the arrival of our guests we had a bit of a scare. The epidural made my blood pressure plummet and Ryan's heart rate dropped to 40. The nurse came rushing in the room, turned me on my side, injected me with a syringe full of epinephrine, and threw an oxygen mask on me. It happened so fast i didn't have too much time to worry but it was one of the scariest parts of labor. From then on i was constantly watching Ryan's heart rate monitor.

So things were good, i wasn't feeling anything, and we were just hanging out. Until...i started hurting. The nurse kicked everyone out and told me it was almost time for delivery. Ryan have moved down into place, and she was optimistic that i wouldn't have to have a c-section. The only problem? Ryan was sunny-side up, which is the wrong way to be. Oh well, we would give it a try! Suddenly i started hurting really bad. I'm not quite sure if my epidural was starting to wear off or if it was solely because of his positioning. But to make a long story short.....that hurt SO FREAKING BAD! I really don't think i could have lasted much longer, so it's good that he came as fast as he did. I nearly begged for a c-section, and the doctor ended up having to use a vacuum to help him along. I was also scared out of my mind because Ryan's heart rate kept dropping drastically and he needed to be out quickly. It was the longest, hardest 30 minutes of my life but worth every single second. And amazingly i didn't cry once!

Here is a short clip of my thoughts immediately afterward. Turn up the volume and listen closely to Jake's question and my response. (You have to visit my blog to view the video)