This birth story starts VERY differently than Jocelyn's. With Jocelyn, I followed the book - contractions started, water broke, I went to the hospital, 9 hours later a baby was born. With Donovan, things were not so, well, simple.
I woke up Friday morning not really thinking I was going to have a baby, although open to the possibility. I showered, shaved (for some weird reason) and got ready for a doctor's appointment. It wasn't even a full appointment, no cervix check. Just a BP / urine check to make sure I was still healthy. Well, my BP was still elevated (although not ridiculous) and my urine still had +1 protein (again, not alarming), so the doctor wanted me to go to the hospital to be monitored. Again. She did warn not to stop for food on the way, in case they decided they needed to induce me. But the other times I went to the hospital for monitoring everything was fine, so I didn't think that was a possibility.
Anyway, I didn't have anything with me. No suitcase. No books. I didn't even have Mike come to the hospital with me. I sent him to work!
So I got there, and sure enough, my BP was FINE. I peed in a cup there, but they didn't send it to the lab. In the time between my doctor's appointment and when I got my BP's monitored my most recent 24-hour urine sample came back. The protein was more than 300 (nobody told me units), which is the cut off for induction. It wasn't far past it, but my doctor's theory was that when I'm that close to my due date, and the baby is full term, then there is no reason to push me any further. She ordered an induction, and I was confined to a hospital bed with monitors and such wrapped all around my belly. That was NO FUN.
So I called the hubby, let him know what was going on, and gave him a to-do list. He went home to pack up the rest of the stuff and load up Jocelyn's gear to take to the babysitter, called the airline to have my MIL's flight changed to that evening (instead of Sunday, when she was going to come in), and came to the hospital.
They started my Pitocin drip at around 1:00, maybe? I don't recall the timing exactly. Anyway, it was a slow drip, and didn't do much. I started to feel the occasional contraction, but after 2 hours I was still only 4 cm dilated and barely effaced. At 3:30 they broke my water, which was weird. It was weird when it broke on my own, of course, but it was weirder for them to break it. I could feel the pointy hook thing, but it didn't hurt at all. Then I felt the trickle of liquid, followed by a gush.
After that, the contractions felt stronger. And more regular. They were probably happening every three minutes, and lasting a full minute. At first it hurt, but the pain was manageable. As it went on, the pain became very difficult. By about 4:30 I asked for the epidural. So, naturally, it took a full hour for the anesthesiologist to show up. In the mean time, we had them check my cervix one more time - still 4 cm and barely effaced. So Mike went to pick Jocelyn up from daycare (instead of having the sitters do it) and dropped her off with the sitters.
Mike was gone a while - it turned out that the sitters decided they didn't feel like bringing in the high chair, so they left it in their car. That was fine, except it's really hard to feed a toddler who has nowhere to sit! So Mike stuck around to feed her, which was probably what she needed anyway to get comfortable there.
While he was gone, I got the epidural. I don't remember it last time, I was in so much pain by the time it was going on that I barely remember the pain of the epidural. In this case, my contractions were only so strong, so I felt every step of getting it. The lidocaine injection hurt like a beast - and that's what's supposed to make the epidural not hurt! And I didn't have Mike there to talk me through it! But it was okay, because the nurses were amazing, and one of them talked and massaged me through the entire process. Anyway, they did the lidocaine and then he placed the epidural. It was weird, because I could feel it press through my spine. That was a bizarre sensation. I felt pressure, but I was completely numb, and I felt it pop through the middle of my spine. So weird.
15 minutes later, I didn't feel the contractions in my lower abdominal area anymore, so that was nice. Since Mike wasn't around, I took the opportunity to call my mom and let her know that her grandson was on his way into the world and that it was only a matter of time. While I was on the phone with her, I got a really weird sensation in my butt. It felt something like holding a deep yoga squat. My glutes felt very tense and were sort of burning, and it also felt like (sorry to be gross, but you do know you are reading a birth story, so you had to figure there would be some gross parts) I had major constipation and couldn't pass it. At first it was subtle, and it got worse as time went on. Eventually I told my mom that I was in too much pain to talk on the phone, and I pressed my epidural button to get some more juice. It didn't help.
As I was about to press the nurse call button, my nurse came in. She wanted to check my cervix again, because my monitors gave some indication that baby might be ready soon. 9 cm, about 75-80% effaced. This was a bit after 6:00, and it was clear that I'd be pushing soon. They called my doctor, and told me to get my husband back. Luckily he was on his way back already, so he wasn't far. But I'm sure that once I told him how far along I was he picked up the pace a bit :-P.
He got there with the rest of the gang - nurses, doctor, etc. I told my doctor about the butt pain, and she checked the baby. He was sunny-side up - I was in back labor! No wonder! So his head was pushing against my butt. And it was just outside of the range of where the epidural was most effective (since you want to feel *something* during the labor so you know where to push). So the pain was far greater than I would have liked, but probably nowhere near as bad as it could have been.
Since babies don't like to come out upside down, we tried to flip him. And to do so, we pushed while the doctor tried to turn him. After about 3 or 4 contractions worth of pushing, it became clear that it wasn't going to work. He'd turn half way, but with each push, his heart rate dropped. And between each push he went back in, and his heart rate returned to normal. So the pushing was putting him into distress, but he was fine while inside. We needed to find a better way to flip the baby.
The next thing they did was put up a wide stirrup. I was to turn sideways and put my top leg into the stirrup. I guess this was to have gravity help him turn over. I was in this position for 3 contractions, and it was enough to flip him over! It HURT like all get out. Thank goodness I opted to have the epidural, imagine if I didn't!
They then flipped me on my back and converted the bed into the delivery bed (took off the bottom, raised me up in the air, and put on all the lights and it was time to deliver a baby! Despite the epidural, I was very aware that he was very close. he had made his way pretty far down and I could feel him crowning. With each push, his head was coming out more and more. It was sort of blurry and things happened really fast. And I only pushed through 4 contractions (with 3 pushes apiece). It hurt, and it was exhausting. Each one was harder than the last, but Mike and the nurses were cheering me on which helped me muster the energy. We didn't have a mirror this time, so I wasn't able to see him (which is a nice motivator) - I didn't think to ask for it until we were in the throes of labor and by then I didn't want to wait for it. Finally, on the third push of the fourth contraction, I had a baby! I felt every bump and ripple as he slid out of me, and they put him right onto my chest, where I got to put my arms around him.
Unfortunately, they couldn't keep him there. The cord was wrapped around his neck. Mike cut it (the nurse who took the picture did a really bad job, so we have no good pictures of it), and they had to take my baby away for evaluation right away. He had good APGAR scores (8 then 9), and when they weighed him I thought there was an echo in the room. The nurse declared "10 pounds, 6 ounces" and it got repeated by everybody in the room. I thought that there was going to be applause! People were certainly impressed. It was pretty funny.
While they were cleaning up the baby, they were also cleaning me up. With the seemingly weaker epidural (or maybe it was slightly misplaced, more on that later) I was aware of the placenta delivery as well. Not that it hurt, but I felt the pressure as it came out. Oh, and in the process of delivering a 10+ lb. baby, I had some tearing, so I had to get some stitches. I was aware of that happening as well. It didn't hurt, per se, but I felt a pinch every time the needle went in, and I felt the slide of the needle, the pressure release of the needle pulling out, and the slide of the thread. So that was weird. Meanwhile, I could barely move my arms and my upper body felt vaguely numb. So perhaps the epidural was placed a bit too high or something.
Within 25 minutes I was all stitched up and cleaned up, and my baby was wiped down, vitals checked and in my arms and we were figuring out the whole nursing thing. It was not as easy as I expected - the last time I nursed somebody she was a 13-month old pro. It had been nearly 19 months since I nursed a newborn who didn't know what he was doing. But we got the hang of it soon enough.
As I was nursing, I became aware of how hungry I was - it had been more than 12 hours since I last ate something and I popped out a baby in that time. Since the cafeteria was still open, I was able to get a nice club sandwich and fries, and I got to relearn how to cuddle a baby eat one-handed :-P. That didn't last long, though, since Donovan needed his bath. So Mike helped give the bath while I chowed down :-P. I couldn't walk yet anyway.
Within an hour and a half we had settled on the name - Donovan Michael. It took quite a bit of discussing, but as we looked at him, we knew that was his name. Donovan means "Dark Warrior" in Irish, which was well-suited to his dark hair and dark steel-blue eyes.
And that was it. 39 weeks and 5 days of growing in my belly, and 6 or so hours of labor - albeit induced - and my life will never be the same.
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