So Then There Was This Time I Pushed a Baby Out of Me.

Hey! Hello? Anybody still out there?
I'm a mom!
And here's the story...reposted from Facebook.
Enjoy!

So, around 4:30 Monday morning I woke up with what felt like some pretty intense cramps that were coming pretty regularly. I thought, "well, I might as well time them." So, I grabbed my trusty iphone (because there's a damn app for that) and got to timing. I told myself that I'd call the doctor if they were still coming in under 10 minutes apart by 7 AM. And woo-hoo! They were. So, I called. Luckily, I live 5 minutes from the doctor's office, so I decided to go in and get checked there rather than drive all the way to the hospital only to be sent home in the event of false labor. I got an appointment at 11:45. No sweat. B-ri and I set to getting our bag packed and he set up the pack and play bassinet just in case...

At the doctor's office we learned that my water had indeed broken, and so it was off to the hospital!

We checked in around 2:30 and made ourselves comfortable for what was about to become a really long 2 days.

The doctor on call came in and told us that I was in "latent labor" and that she didn't expect "active labor" to come on until some time in the wee-hours of the morning. Because my water had broken and they wanted to avoid infection, they also hooked me up to a slow Pitcocin drip to help things along. OK, groovy, I thought, I'll just hang out and when the contractions get too bad, it'll be off to epidural land. I think I lasted about 4 hours. Epidural land is a magical place where dreams are indeed danced. And then we went to sleep.

Around 4:30 AM (my witching hour apparently) they came in to tell me that they were concerned that the pitocin was bothering the baby because her heart rate kept dipping after contractions. So, since I was dilating nicely, they turned off the pitocin.
Around 7:30 I had a 101.9 fever. They started the pitocin again after discovering I had stalled out at 6 1/2 centimeters and now I had an infection. They needed to get the baby moving.
Then my epidural wore off, so the anesthesiologist came in to dose me again. Bliss.
Up until this point, really, I was fine. I was just anxious to get to the pushing. My husband was there, my mom was there, and the team of doctors and nurses was awesome. I wasn't worried.
So, at noon, I made it to 10 centimeters and they told me I was gonna start pushing at 12:30. To give me time to rest (I needed ANOTHER dose of epidural which took forever so, I had about a half hour of reality that I NEVER want to experience again).

12:30...Pushing time. They gave me a crash course in the technique and then my body took over. And from what I could tell, I was doing great. But then they started packing ice packs around me. To get my fever down. Which apparently had spiked to 103. The baby's heart rate was all over the place. Sometimes upwards of 200 bpm and sometimes as low as 106. The doctor was becoming concerned, so she recommended that we use forceps to help her come down into the birth canal. And if that didn't work, then we were going to have to resort to C-section. That's when I started freaking out about brain damage and lack of oxygen and ultimately convinced myself that there was something totally wrong with her. Oh, did I forget to mention the presence of meconium in my amniotic fluid? That’s baby poop. If she were to breathe that in, she’d be in some trouble. Yeah, that too.

So, out came the forceps, I kept pushing and at 2:35 PM Lyla Margaret Brehart was born. All 8 lbs and 6 oz of her. With a FULL head of hair. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to hold her right away. Because of the meconium, they had to make sure she didn't cry right away so that she didn't aspirate any of it. So, they worked on her for about a half and hour...suctioning out her airways, massaging her to get her lungs working. And then there was me.

THOSE WITH ISSUES WITH BLOOD, GORE, AND GENERAL DISCOMFORT AROUND MYSTERIOUS LADY PARTS SHOULD SKIP THIS NEXT PART

I was busy delivering the placenta. Which should have been routine, right? Nope.
I had a 3rd degree tear in my perineum. Also not uncommon. However, even after the repair, I was still bleeding. It was discovered that there were still pieces of the placenta in my uterus. So, they had to do what was basically a manual D&C to get it all out. My epidural at this point had worn off again. So, yeah. I felt all of it. The doctor kept repeating “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry” as her had was where no hand had no business being. Ever. When everything was said and done I had lost about 800 cc's of blood. That’s just about 2 pints. Awesome. Then they shot me up with some dilaudid for the pain, which, turned me into a shuffling, drooling “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” mess. And I STILL hadn't held the baby yet.

Then they were done and FINALLY I got to hold her. I was so out of it though I didn't really feel safe holding her. They gave me the side-eye when I refused to hold her in the wheel chair on the way up to my room. I told them, well actually slurred to them “Look, I’m not one of those moms refusing to hold her because I’m trying to avoid her. I honestly just can’t because my body isn’t working right now. Good lord.” So my mom and my husband took over.

Brian was amazing, by the way. He was calm and encouraging throughout the entire experience and I couldn't have asked for a better partner in all of this. He is unbelievable. And my mom got to see her granddaughter born. She had never seen a baby born before and she was beside herself with joy.

So there you have it. It was a harrowing experience, but ultimately a happy one as my daughter is healthy. And gorgeous. And huge. And I can't wait to get to know this new little person we brought into the world.

Some highlights that weren’t actually highlights:

-My regular doctor didn’t actually deliver me. Apparently he wasn’t on call. Even though I delivered on a Tuesday and I was supposed to see him that day and I’ve had appointments with him moved and canceled due to him in surgery or delivery. I guess my crisis wasn’t “crisis-y” enough.
-The doctor who DID deliver me was a total bitch. She told me twice that I needed a better attitude when all I did was ask for more pain meds—which I was told by the nurses was completely acceptable and to NOT wait until it was unbearable.
-The same doctor responded rather nonchalantly with “I hope so” when I asked her if the baby was going to be ok.
-My second anesthesiologist was an asshole. As I’m WRITHING in pain for a half hour, he walks in like it’s no big things and goes “So, what’s going on?” Like I was hassling him or something. When I asked for his recommendation after he spewed a whole bunch of unclear jargon, his response was “I don’t know your pain. I can’t answer that.”
-It took them an hour and 45 minutes to finish all the repairs on my lady parts.
-I am now sitting on a rubber donut.