Tuesday, March 6th, Jason and I stayed up late and watched a movie- Anonymous- good, long movie. We went to bed at 1:15 a.m. Wednesday. Jason quickly fell asleep and was abruptly woken just 30 minutes later by me shaking him. My water had broken! I was in complete shock because I had just read earlier day that this only happens to abut 15% of women in pregnancy. I ran to the bathroom and Jason frantically packed his hospital bag (the one I had been telling him to pack for days now.) I stood in the bathroom laughing like a crazy woman because I was so excited. Baby was coming!
At this point in time I am having very light contractions. We finished picking up a couple things around the house and headed to the hospital. Upon arriving my contractions were now 2-3 minutes apart- still very little pain. They did an initial workup on me and hooked me up to a bunch of machines that monitor the baby's heart and my contractions. After receiving the results from my bloodwork I was admitted due to preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is somewhat of a diagnosis before the diagnosis. It's a condition that occurs before eclampsia (duh) and is characterized by high blood pressure, swelling, and protein in the urine. I had been having major swelling and slight protein in my urine for some time now but my blood pressure had remained good and the previous lab results were negative. My blood pressure as this point...150/114. Not so good at all. Eclampsia is a risk because your body sees your pregnancy as a tumor and literally attacks it, therefore causing seizures. You can see now why I'm not allowed to leave.
After hours and hours of 'non-active' labor our midwife suggested we use medical intervention. As many of you know we wanted a 100% natural birth so this was a difficult decision to make. After your water breaks baby needs to be delivered within a timely manner- typically within 24 hours to ensure health. We were offered both cervidil and pitocin. We opted with the lesser of the two evils, cervidil.
The cervidil made my contractions extremely painful! For this I am so very very grateful for such an amazing labor coach. Jason stuck with me through the absolute worst pain of my life, rubbed my back, helped me move around, stroked my hair, all of it! After hours of this our midwife returned with some unfortunate news. I still had not progressed. How after such pain this is even possible I do not know. Our next step then was pitocin. After laboring for 22 hours and having no sleep since Monday night- it is now Thursday morning- I opted for the epidural.
Pitocin only made my contraction much worse, but no progress. I was still 60% effaced and 3 cm dilated :/ Oh did I mention my epi only took on one side? YIKES.
After doing this for a couple hours, how many I am completely unsure because I am in so much pain and quite unhappy, our midwife returned again. This time very serious and not looking very positive. She told us that because of my blood pressure and the fact that I was now developing a fever, we have one more hour to progress before we need to go into surgery, and wants to talk about a c-section.
Jason and I had already had that talk. I was beyond exhausted and completely surprised her with my immediate lets do the c-section!
I was prepped and ready for surgery within minutes. Both Jason and my mother were allowed in the room. Typically they only let you have one viewer for the big show but by this point the staff all felt like we were bffs and made an exception. They tested me to make sure I had taken to the epi and had no response and so surgery began. However, I COULD FEEL. As soon as they began to cauterize me I moaned in extreme pain. At this point I literally thought I could tough it out. I had endured 27 hours of labor...I got this! The anesthesiologist asked if I wanted to be put under to which i stubbornly responded no. I WAS NOT ABOUT TO BE THE LAST PERSON TO FIND OUT IF THIS BABY WAS A BOY OR GIRL!!! The team continued to work on me burning and tugging and pulling. Finally one of the nurses looked over the curtain at me and asked what exactly could i feel. Sharp pains.
At this point going under was no longer an option. Jason and my mother were kicked out of the room and they explained the procedure was going to take a few more minutes and I reluctantly went under. But believe me, I went down fighting.
I fought very hard to wake, but kept coming in and out. As they wheeled me to my new room I heard one of the nurses say "what a goddess." BABY GIRL. I had a baby girl. I finally came too and found the most beautiful baby girl on my chest and husband by my side.
I posted this verse earlier...but now it holds so much more meaning.
"A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world."
~ John 16:21
Jaden's birth was a painful and scary experience, but the joy that comes from this tiny little human is greater than anything I have ever known. Welcome to the world Jaden Rose. Mommy loves you.
