Rylee's Birthday

Saturday, Sept 6th, 2008
After spending all night listening to other women deliver, by morning I was ready to get the show on the road. My favorite of the delivery stories were: the woman whose husband had to race down the hallway to get the nurses and who then delivered within minutes and the woman who screamed, “Please get my baby out!” over and over. I had already decided I would not be screaming down the halls no matter how much pain I was in, but listening to that lady reconfirmed my conviction.

The morning also brought a shift change. I now had two nurses (one a trainee) so I got the “fun” of having all my exams done twice! It wasn’t that bad actually. The trainee was better than the regular nurse in many aspects. Even with the two of them, I hardly ever saw them. I may have been ready to deliver, but the hospital was still crazy and everything took twice as long as expected. This meant Jon could go downstairs and get breakfast and that my Mom could start to worry and fret over what was taking so long and why we weren’t calling with more updates (nothing to tell!).

I think it was around 10:00/11:00 am that they finally came in to break my water. It took several tries with the hook before the doctor was successful. (Sadly, I don’t even know our Dr.’s name. No one from my office was working since it was the weekend.) It certainly was a weird feeling when that huge burst of warm water came shooting out!

Some time later, they came to put in the epidural. I had opted not to have any pain medications via the IV as I have weird reactions to pain meds - pretty much anything stronger than Extra Strength Tylenol makes me feel like I’m going to slip into a coma and die. (That is if it manages to stay in my system. Most often I’ll violently puke it up first.) Thus I was worried about my reaction to the epidural as well. I had previously discussed my hesitation with the anesthesiologist and he had recommended starting off with a milder dosage.

Getting the epidural wasn’t that bad. I had so much back pain already that I didn’t really notice the pressure. That and I was too worried about keeping still so I didn’t accidentally cause them to paralyze me or something. The weirdest thing about the epidural was feeling like I was all Novocained from the boobs down. I kind of freaked out at first because I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I had all that mucus-y stuff in my lungs and throat from my pregnancy “ick” and I couldn’t cough to clear my throat. I’m guessing you need stomach muscles for that and I could no longer feel mine. It took me a while to just forget about it.

After the epidural, they started the Pitocin drip. Things got moving pretty quickly from there. I was dilating rapidly and the contractions were coming faster, but I was blissfully numb. Until… the epidural wore off a good hour or so before the birth. It was gradual at first. I could feel my chest, then my stomach, then my legs… oh and I could feel the contractions too. :)

They had planned on coming back to top me off so to speak, but since the hospital was pure chaos, that never happened. Jon and I monitored the contractions and he helped me with my breathing. I was starting to feel a lot of pressure down there and I wanted the nurses to check my progress. We kept asking them to come in and they kept saying that they’d be right back. An hour later and I was thinking we would be delivering this baby by ourselves after all. Remembering the guy who had sprinted down the hallway the night before, I told Jon to get someone in here NOW!

Sure enough they flipped back the sheet, pronounced me ready to go, and within two minutes the doctor was in and I was ready to push. The doctor gave me a two second instruction which included a thinly veiled comment about how screaming wastes energy and is counterproductive to pushing. She needn’t worry as I had already made up my mind about that the night before!

Since the epidural was long gone, I grabbed and held my own legs and pushed away. I was very “zen” about the whole birthing experience. I was focused, kept my eyes relaxed and closed most of the time, and just concentrated on breathing and pushing. The nurses thought I was some sort of yogi and said they were impressed with my pain tolerance. They probably say this to all the women, but it was a nice motivator. :)

In truthfulness, the actual birth is mostly a blur. I remember Jon counting and the nurses telling me my progress with each push. (It felt like I pushed for a good half hour, but your Dad said it was more like 10 minutes.) I remember they put the oxygen mask on me and put my feet in the stirrups towards the end. I remember thinking that the head was going to slip back inside and ruin the forward progress I’d made so I wanted to keep pushing all the time. I remember an overwhelming sensation that I wanted her out. (I can see why the woman was yelling, “Please get my baby out!” - that was a pretty accurate description, but I had the sense to keep my mouth shut.) I remember I never screamed. (There was some grunting and maybe a whimpering sigh when it was all over, but that was it.) I remember the feeling of sweet relief when at 5:12 pm, Rylee came out into the world and how I almost immediately felt good. From excruciating pain to nothing in one push. Amazing!