If you’re new here, read my first What’s for Dinner post to get filled in on what’s going on. If you’ve been to this rodeo before, let’s get to business.
Having a baby at the end of the school year is not for sissies. I wish someone would have told me that nine months ago and I may have tried to aim for a tad later in the summer. I feel like from the second I got home from the hospital there has been some reason I needed to be at the school or send something special in every day and my brain and body just aren’t on board with all that extra stuff right now. I am still trying to get adjusted to zero sleep and nursing, which for some reason, this time around has been a bit of a nightmare. We are talking some pretty serious cracking going on if you know what I mean. I cry and want to run and hide every time it’s time for him to eat….which feels like every five minutes.
And the crying isn’t just about feeding, I think there is something seriously wrong with me, I’ve never been such an emotional basket case after having a baby. Everything makes me cry right now. Not a normal cry either, it’s like the tears literally spring out of my eyes….so weird. Here’s hoping that will subside once the crazy nursing pain goes away and I adjust to the sleep deprivation.
Speaking of things at the school, I had two picnics this week, one for each boy. Conner’s on Tuesday and Thatcher’s was today. I gotta say I was feeling pretty cute today at Thatchers with my new shirt on….have I mentioned nothing fits, and all my post preggo clothes from Charlotte are sweatsuits and other winter clothes that are just not an option right now, so I’ve been wearing my husbands basketball shorts and t-shirts almost every day…. I couldn’t handle the frumpster-ness anymore and finally got a couple new shirts on a late night Kohls run last night. Below is a picture of what I looked like on Tuesday at Conner’s picnic…..with my too tight shirt…Yikes!
Oh what a difference having clothes that fit makes.
I mentioned last week that I would share Trever’s birth story this week. For those who are interested here it goes:
Let me preface this story with the fact that I have never gone into labor on my own. I was induced with all three of my previous children. I grow giant babies so after Conner was born weighing 10 lbs 9 ounces (causing quite the damage on his way out) I was induced 11 days early with both Thatcher and Charlotte. Thatcher weighed 9 lbs 9 ounces and did considerable less damage coming out then Conner had and Charlotte weighed 8 lbs 13 ounces and I didn’t even tear.
The only problem was that the hospital where I delivered Charlotte has a strict policy that they only induce at 39 weeks unless there is some kind of serious risk. If they induce even one day more then 39 weeks early they make you do amnio test to make sure the babies lungs are developed. So I had to beg and cry, literally, to get any of the doctors to listen to my story of Conner’s horrific birth..fourth degree tear and broken tale bone. Finally one of the doctors listened and took pity on me so I could be induced earlier then 39 weeks, but I still had to have the amnio test done and I hated it.
Soooo…when I knew I was pregnant with Trever and would be delivering at the same hospital. I had to make a decision when I called to set up my first appointment. I made the decision, in hopes of avoiding the hassle and headache I had been through to get Charlotte here before she weighed 10 lbs, to lie. I lied about my last period by 6 days. They thought my due date was June 1st but it was really June 7th. This way, not being started until 39 weeks wouldn’t be a problem because I would really only be 38 weeks. If I felt worried that being started at 38 weeks would be to early I could always ask for an induction day a little closer to my “real” due date. I’m not particularly proud about the lie, but I have to admit it took away alot of the anxiety I had felt during Charlotte’s pregnancy, wondering if they were going to make me go full term and deliver a huge baby that would wreck me again.
Okay, now you know the back story. Here’s how things went down with Baby Trever.
The weekend of Memorial Day was a busy one for our family. We had 14 family members who had come to visit for Conner’s baptism. Everyone was staying at our three bedroom house, so things were tight. Everyone arrived on Friday and we had the baptism Saturday morning with a luncheon afterwords. Friday I had attended the boys field day at school and had had alot of braxton hicks contractions. Saturday, I didn’t have too many contractions, but I kept getting terrible charlie horses in my upper thighs which is pretty darn embarrassing in a public place because the only way to really get rid of them is to do a squat and at 9 months pregnant, you can only imagine how awesome that looks.
Saturday was a great day with family and friends and I was soooo glad I had made it through without having the baby. As far as contractions go, Sunday was the calmest day I had had all week. I hadn’t really had any contractions and was feeling pretty good.
My visiting family members wanted to go down to the Washington DC Temple to walk around and go to the visitor’s center. The temple is a little over an hour from our house. With the charlie horses I had been having when I walked very far I decided to stay behind. Everyone thought someone should stay with me, but I insisted I would be fine and made them all go.
When they left I finished putting together some stuffed shells for dinner and sat down to relax for a minute. I pulled up Facebook and decided to watch a little show I had been wanting to see.
When I started the show, I realized I was having some contractions. They seemed a little different the the others I had been having on and off for the last two weeks, but I didn’t think much about it, I just kept watching my show. About 15 minutes later I realized these contractions seemed very regular and maybe I should monitor them. I started monitoring them and they were coming every 3-5 minutes. They were also different in the way that they seemed to build instead of just tighten.
I got a little nervous because, like I said before, I have never gone into labor on my own and I didn’t really have any clue what to expect. I tried to call a friend who was also pregnant and due any day to see what she thought. She didn’t answer so I called my family and said I wasn’t sure but I thought I might be having real contractions. I told them they didn’t really need to hurry home though because it was probably nothing and I would call them back if they got closer together or anything.
After I hug up with them I started to get really nervous. What if I was in labor, what if the contractions got really bad really fast…what would I do, what if I couldn’t even get to my neighbors for help. I had officially got myself in a panic, so I called a friend who has older kids that I thought might be able to come sit with me until my family got home. She was so sweet, and said she would come right over. My voice may or may not have cracked when I asked her to come and I may or may not have cried for five minutes (out of relief) when I got off the phone with her.
She sat with me and talked and distracted me for the next hour or so until my family got home. All the while I was watching the clock and the contractions were still very consistent and sticking to around 3-4 minutes apart. They were not super intense but I was uncomfortable.
My family got home and everyone was so excited that I might be in labor. Sim and I packed a bag and I hesitantly left for the hospital, I was sort of in denial about the whole thing, it was a really strange feeling. I wasn’t mentally prepared to be having a baby…I was planning on being induced in two days. I also was a little sad to be leaving all my family knowing that they were going to be having fun playing games and chatting all night. My sister snapped a quick picture of me as we were leaving. She made me take a few, because apparently I wasn’t smiling big enough…well excuse me for being a bit uncomfortable.
Anywho, we got to the hospital around 8 pm and got situated into the room about 8:30. I was dilated to almost a 4, so they monitored my contractions for about an hour and then checked me again. I hadn’t progressed very much so they decided to put me on a little pitocin. By the way did I mention my favorite midwife was on call that night. I was so happy that it was going to end up being her that delivered my baby….well, as long as I had the baby by 8 am when her shift ended.
They let the pitocin do it’s thing for about 2 hours and then broke my water. The contractions were getting pretty intense. I had decided a long time ago that if possible I didn’t want to get an epidural. I didn’t have one with Charlotte and liked the experience and the recovery much better then the two deliveries I had with epidurals. I hate shots and anything like them, and I also hate catheters so I was hoping I could do another natural birth, but I was so tired after such a long weekend and of all the Sunday’s this was the one Sunday that I hadn’t taken a nap. I was exhausted and knew that things were going to get really intense soon. I asked for a dose of Nubain (sp) so that I could hopefully relax enough to sleep a little between contractions and get some energy back…..the Nubain did help me relax but the contractions were to strong to sleep through.
When they checked me two hours later I was a six or so, she was hoping I would be at least a 7 and she said she wanted to insert a catheter thing to measure how strong the contractions were on the inside of the uterus….remember how much I love catheters. I asked if she would be willing to let me try the birthing ball for an hour or so to see if I could progress without having to do the catheter thing. She was down with that so I got on the birthing ball. at this point the contractions were very strong. My husband was asleep in the corner and part of me wanted to throw something at him and the other part of me felt bad for him and wanted to let him sleep.
Finally though the contractions were too strong and I had to have him come rub my back. They came back in and hip hip hooray I had progressed to almost an 8. Good news: No Catheter thing. Bad News: I was in A LOT of pain! I asked if it was too late to get a second does of the Nubain…it wasn’t so they gave me that, but the thing about Nubain is it doesn’t really take away the pain, it just kind of puts your brain in la la land so that in between the contractions you can relax a bit.
The contractions just kept getting stronger and stronger and closer and closer together. It was like they were right on top of each other. This went on for about an hour and ten minutes and by the end I was shaking, crying, on my side, clutching the side rail of the bed, begging Sim to push harder on my back. It was so horrible, just typing this is making me feel sick. From this point on I knew I had made a huge mistake not getting an epidural. The pain was terrible, much worse then with Charlotte. I attribute it to the sheer exhaustion of having such a busy weekend and then laboring all through the night.
I was begging the nurse to get my doctor to check me, but she was hesitant for some reason, I guess she didn’t think I would have progressed that fast with how slow the rest of my dilating had been. Thankfully Sim was my little advocate and told her I really needed to be checked so I could at least know where I was and if I could still get an epidural.
When the Doctor came in I was dilated and she said it was time to push. She kept telling me to hold my leg up and I just remember yelling, “I can’t hold my own leg, I can’t, I can’t.” I really was pretty sure I was going to die, I was in so much pain I couldn’t even tell if I was pushing. It felt like it took forever to get his head out, in reality it was probably 2 contractions.
His neck and shoulders took another 3 or four contractions to get out and because I wanted to do everything possible to limit the amount of tearing, the doctor had me stop pushing at certain times. Apparently when babies are born really fast there is a higher risk of tearing badly. Having to stop pushing felt like the worst form of torture in the world. If the bad guys of this world ever find out how to duplicate that type of pain, they will be able to get any information they want out of anyone that they want. I would have done anything to end that pain.
Luckily, at the point where I thought I was for sure going to have to give up and just die, the rest of his little body popped out and the pain was miraculously gone in an instant. They put that sweet little baby up on my chest and I couldn’t believe how small he felt. I thought he must only be six or seven pounds. He felt so tiny. (Later, when they put him on the scale, he turned out to be 8 lbs 11 oz.) I was so excited he was my smallest baby.)
Right after he came out and was on my chest, he hadn’t cried yet and seemed to be gagging or choking. It really scared me. The nurses and midwife kept saying it was okay he was just trying to get the breathing thing figured out. But a few seconds later they took him and messed with him over on the warming table to get him to cry. I was so relieved.
I find it amazing that the terrible pain of child birth, disappears the instant the baby pops out. I felt the need to apologize to everyone in the room for screaming so much and for thinking I was going to die. Sim said I did better with not freaking out this time then I did with Charlotte’s birth….so that was good. With Charlotte’s birth I screamed things like. “Help me, Help me! Why won’t somebody help me.” “Get her out, Get her out, Get her out!” and something else dramatic that I can’t remember. This time I stuck with “I can’t do this, I can’t do this!” and “I can’t hold my own leg, I can’t I can’t.” Good times. I wonder if doctors hate it when mom’s decide not to get epidurals. Mine probably does. 🙂
I do have to say if I had to do it over again, I would have sucked it up and gotten the epidural. Going in so exhausted and laboring all night really set me up for a rougher recovery. But I’m so glad Trever is here now and I can’t get enough of his cute cheekies, I just want to eat his face. Everyone in our family is quite enamored with him and as crazy as adjusting to a newborn and the unpredictable-ness it brings to life is, we are so grateful to have little Trever in our family and already love him so much. Life is Beautiful!
Keep it Real!!!
Maria
You are such a superwoman momma, even in labor! Way to go Maria!
I’ve had one baby with an epidural and one without. Though I thought I was going to die without the epidural, I loved how as soon as the baby was born, I felt better. But I totally get the exhaustion thing–that’s why I got the epidural the first time around. I’m due in two weeks with #3 and plan on going without again.
Hopefully this isn’t too personal, but have you tried a nipple shield? I had horrible pain and cracking while trying to breastfeed my second. A nipple shield created enough of a barrier so I didn’t bawl my eyes out every time she wanted to nurse and gave the skin some time to heal. It definitely saved me from giving up on breastfeeding and after a few weeks, I didn’t have to use it and didn’t have any other problems.
I love birth stories, thanks for sharing yours! Fourth degree tears are the stuff of nightmares and yes, fast births can cause more tearing. Ask me how I know that. 😉
I heart birth stories! This made me tear up. Thanks for sharing!