More Salt: My Birth Story

I probably shouldn't even be writing this right now, but I have to get it out! My baby Nolan is sleeping peacefully in my husband's arms - which means I should be sleeping too.

But here goes (and as always, I don't care if I have typos but it'd be really great if you didn't point em out to me... not that you guys do anyways! You're the best!!)

So Saturday, July 13th, my husband and I didn't have anything planned. We were officially three days overdue by that point so our minds were occupied with anything and everything baby. We went for a walk early in the morning to beat the heat and to hopefully kickstart labor. After the walk, I decided that I needed to hit up my acupuncture guy and be like, "please poke this baby out of me!" in a completely non-sexual way.

Nothing REALLY was going on though. I kind of felt twinges and stuff all day that I kinda/sorta thought was maybe something. But I didn't think much of it. Quite honestly, I thought I had days to go because I have a "family history" of late pregnancies. I was apparently 3 weeks late - however I sort of doubt this is comparable to how they measure pregnancies anymore because my mom didn't have an early u/s to determine gestational age like most of us do nowadays.

The husband and I had a lazy day. We grilled, made fettucine alfredo with spinach, and watched at least 5 episodes of Law & Order SVU with EVERY intention of picking up my house the next morning because surely we had time...

And then Nolan laughed and said, "nah, we're going to get this party started now."

My water broke naturally at around 11pm. It was a really crazy feeling. I can't adequately describe it so I'm going to use the best description I can... it was a sharp/dull pain. Oh weas, you just know how to paint a word picture. I remember making a little "oooh" sound and then all the sudden it was like HELLO WATER!

I had just gone to the bathroom minutes before so I was pretty much ruling out the fact that I could have peed myself at this point.

I sat on the toilet for a good 3-4 minutes and just felt the water trickle out of me. Meanwhile, I'm talking to my husband about how to get me ready to get in his car (read: how to make whatever is leaking out of me not spill onto his leather car seats!!!)

I asked him to pack a few of my last minute items, such as makeup and hair straightener... because I'm a model apparently and needed these things. I packed up my ipad, camelbak water bottle, and my purse. No wait, I had them by the door and forgot them at home instead. WHOOPSIE

It didn't matter. We were on our way to the hospital.

FUN FACT: Prior to the big day, my family all added each other to the Find Friends app for iphone. I told the fam they can stalk me that way (it's a GPS app) so when I'm at the hospital, they'd know what's up.

Before we got out of the car in the parking lot, my brother had just texted me "OMG" and apparently the whole immediate family (my side only) knew it was showtime!

We get checked in/tested my waters for amniotic fluid simultaneously. Apparently at my hospital they don't do the pH test that I have become familiar with, but basically a q-tip test that is more accurate.

Before delivery

I'm modeling during Fashion Week later this year.

Husband before delivery :) Too cute!

They figured out that yes, my water had broken!!! I wasn't getting contractions yet so my husband and I wandered up and down the hallway of the hospital birthing wing and tried to get the party started.

It didn't take too long for my excitement to get labor going before I realized... ummm I am going to need to sleep at some point through the night. So the hubs and I tried to get some shut eye.

Honestly, I can't remember if I actually fell asleep but I want to say that I was just in that nodding off state when contractions started. Nothing I couldn't handle at first. They kind of felt like a warm pulsating sensation. It started from within and worked itself outwards.

It was like this, except lower and painful and less heartwarming/tearjerking.

By about 3 or 4 in the morning the contractions were no laughing matter. I got in and out of the bath tub twice in the morning and that helped a lot.

The contractions combined with the fact that I couldn't eat (stooopid weas, you didn't eat before going to the hospital!!!) made me super nauseated. I remember at least 5 times I told my husband I felt like I was going to throw up and it passed. Eventually though, I did throw up... into a bucket my husband was holding. I was leaning onto him while I was in pain and knew it was coming and told him to close his eye and we revisited the fettucine alfredo with spinach dinner from earlier.

FUN FACT: My husband says he now knows what it's like to be a toilet.

My midwife came in around 6 or 7 in the morning. She checked me and said I was 3cms and maybe 80% effaced. I definitely dropped the "g-dammit" bomb because I thought, or hoped, that I was at least 5 by this point.

Ughhh...

My midwife asked me what I was going to do about pain management and I told her I wanted an epidural but that the pain wasn't that bad and I could wait. She replied that if I knew I was going to get an epidural I could just get one right then and if the epidural slowed down contractions they could just give me pitocin. She was so chill about me getting an epidural - something I wasn't quite sure about with another midwife at the practice. She really made me feel at ease. I didn't need to reach some arbitrary 5-6 cms goal like I wanted initially.

So I agreed - gimme the drugs.

FUN FACT: At some point through the night, the nurse told me about Cory Monteith's passing. Not that I didn't appreciate knowing current events, I kinda didn't want to associate his passing with my baby's birth... didn't feel quite right.

The anesthesiologist must have heard me say "let's do an epi" because no more than maybe 5 minutes after I agreed to drugs he was in the room prepping me. But not before hearing the scariest thing I heard while in labor:

Nurse: She needs to get fluids or whatever in her before you can do this (You should know that apparently I needed some saline beforehand... the nurse was trying to explain that I hadn't had this done yet - thus the perfectly transcribed first line of this dialogue)
Anesthesiologist: Well I have do it either RIGHT NOW or I'm going to be busy for the next 4 hours.
Me: Come on in!

The doctor comes in and they ask me to do a "well minded" check. I had to explain what I was about to have happen before the doc could do anything apparently.

FUN FACT: I didn't sign the epidural consent forms til after the fact. OOPSIE on the staff. But I didn't care.

I'd like to take a moment to praise whoever is responsible for the epidural. And especially my doctor. The epi I had was picture perfect. I had the full ability to move my legs, wiggle my toes, and even lift my butt off the table when needed. The staff commented several times that it must have been done perfectly. My pain was no more.

Seriously no more than 5 minutes after getting the epi I was asleep. It was about 8 in the morning by this point and I am not one to pull all nighters. So my body was exhausted and they all encouraged me to sleep. I got about 1 1/2 hours of sleep. And so did my husband - who I should mention was an absolute star of the labor and delivery. I think it was really hard for him to see me in such pain. But he did everything I asked and whatever I needed. Mostly I just asked for water and some back rubs.

Fast forward to about 11am, my midwife comes back and checks me again. I'm at 8, maybe 9 cms at this point. They keep upping my pitocin which they started several hours earlier when my contractions slowed from about every 3 minutes (pre-epi) to about 6-8 mins (post-epi).

Fast forward again to about 1pm. Another good thing about my epi was that I could feel things going on. I could still feel the water dripping out of me at this point. But the pain itself was gone. I mentioned to the nurse that I was feeling that dripping feeling and it was like a lot was coming out of me and she said that was my bloody show. That meant that I was probably fully dilated and almost ready to push! WAHOO!!

Midwife comes in, checks me, and they start getting their game faces on. She changes into scrubs/paper gown to prep for delivery. They have me lift up my butt to put some pads down to catch the water/blood from pushing. More compliments about my epidural and my ability to control my body. I was like, "oh I forgot to tell you that I'm AWESOME" and we all had a good laugh.

Just kidding, I was about to push.

It was around this time that the epidural was no match for my contractions. I could start to feel them coming on about every 20-30 seconds or so. With the epidural, the pain was bearable. Very bearable. But still not comfortable.

We started pushing at 1:15. I remember looking at the time and telling my husband to remember it because I wanted to get the time right for ye olde blog. The midwife told me that it usually takes FTM's about 2-3 hours of pushing. I needed to know that so I knew what to expect out of this... so thankfully she told me that amount of time.

Pushing was crazy. I lead the pushing on my own. Even though a monitor was telling the staff when I was having contractions - no one told me to push. I told them I was pushing. The hubs counted to 10 with each push and I did about 4 pushes per contraction.

I was getting such great encouragement from the midwife and nurse. I was really thrilled because they genuinely seemed impressed with my pushing ability. I was relieved that he was coming out on his own!

At some point his head was reaching the outside. My midwife told me to reach down and feel him! I didn't think that I wanted to at first, but then my curiosity go the best of me and I reached down and felt his head! After doing it the one time, I touched a few more times with later contractions to see how he was progressing. It was so weird when I felt more and more of him coming out of me.

MEANWHILE it felt like I was taking the biggest poop of my life.

The midwife and nurse and the hubs were all still encouraging me to push when I was having contractions. He was getting to the point where it was maybe one or two contractions away. On, what would become my final "pushing" contraction, they all gleefully told me to push just one more time (making it 5 pushes that contraction) and that was it!

By 2:11pm NOLAN was here! My midwife had me pull him up to my chest immediately after delivery. He was goopy and warm. Very slippery too! He was crying and crying! I was soooo amazed. I just didn't know what to do or say, so I just kept saying over and over again how much I love him! I counted his fingers and toes (10 of each BTW) and just looked at him while he was screaming and scared. So I just kept talking to him, saying whatever I could think, hoping that he would recognize my voice and calm down.

Our first picture together!


Not pictured: My nipple. Before cropping this photo, I had a definite wardrobe malfunction that made it to facebook.

Proud Daddy!

It was honestly a perfect birth story. He was 8 pounds 4 ounces and 20 inches long! I stared at him then, and I'll probably do this for a long time, but I just kept saying, "I can't believe you're mine!" I gave him some good hugs and kisses and I started my life as a mother.