Where to even start. Many of you reading this probably know my labor story but I feel a need to write it down to help others, maybe therapeutically, or perhaps to share with Mia when she is being a sassy teenager.
First of all, my final due date (yes it changed several times ranging from June 1 to May 17) was on May 25, Memorial Day. Initially I had planned on working up until my due date with my last day being May 15 to give me a week to plan.
In late April, I started feeling extremely exhausted and not so productive at work so I decided to move my date up. But with the business of the season and wanting to leave my team fully prepared, I was only able to leave three days earlier - on Tuesday, May 12.
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| My last pregnant photo before I went to the hospital |
I did my best to stay in bed and relax all while hoping that Mia would come early on her own and I wouldn't have to be induced. I even got a massage to help induce labor.
At Thursday's checkup, my blood pressure had come down but not enough and they found protein in my urine (which I discovered later was a sign that my kidneys were failing). So I was told to go home, pack, and then rest because they were going to have to induce me.
Up until this week I had been very happy with my OB but from then on I felt like a lot happened without her explaining enough to me. Her relaxed personality that I cherished earlier was now irritating to me as I tried to understand why things were changing so quickly. Though now in hind sight, I think there were so many things out of her control and a lot of disconnect between her and the nurses.
We were told the hospital would call on Friday anytime between 8 am and 8 pm when they had an empty bed but instead they called us at 1:30 am. Since Matt and I had just got into bed and we were caught off guard, we told them we would not come in until later after we got some sleep. The nurse was not happy and said we may not get another chance but we went to sleep anyway. AT 8 am, we got a call from the OB asking us if the hospital had called. She laughed when I told her what happened and she told us come in anyway as they would have a bed for me or make room for me. After working through this first miscommunication, Matt and I showered, ate breakfast and then drove to El Camino Hospital checking in around 10 am.
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| Matt getting settled in our hospital room |
We had been told to expect to sit around for a day before labor would start... but I hadn't expected to be having intense contractions during that time. It makes sense now but newbie here and my relaxed OB was so non-chalant about it. This may happen often for her, but not for me!
They gave me a pill to induce labor around 11 am and I started having mild contractions within an hour but no big deal. We watched movies, talked, and I even had a visit with my friend, Christine, to give Matt a break to leave and go get dinner. After Christine left around 7 pm and I ate my last meal before giving birth, things started heating up and my contractions became intense quickly. I asked the nurse about pain options and she said I could have Fentanyl to take the edge off but it only lasted an hour. So I took that and immediately started vomiting. After my hour was up and the pain came back again, I asked about other pain options and I again was told basically just Fentanyl but they could give me Zofran too to help with the vomiting (why we didn't do that the first time while I was vomiting, I still don't know).
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| Selfie when I checked in at the hospital. Happy, hopeful, ignorant :) |
I took that again and it helped but I just felt awful and weak after the vomiting earlier. And the pain kept growing even with the Fentanyl. My OB had said I could get an epidural whenever I wanted but each time I asked the nurse for it, she said they didn't want to give it to me for fear it would stop labor - the labor that still hadn't started. Miss Mia really was not wanting to come! Each time they checked me, I had not even started dilating.
Now I was not a pain yeller. Even at my worst pain I did not scream like some of the other ladies I heard come and go in that hospital. And because I wasn't yelling, I think my nurse didn't believe that I was really in as much pain as I said.
Now I want to add a side note that I had some great nurses - including one that day. But some of them really irritated me, especially the night nurses. They just seemed much less compassionate.
Finally around midnight, I told Matt to get some sleep feeling like there was no need for both of us to be miserable. I walked up and down the hospital hallway to help distract myself - garnering sympathetic looks from all who saw me.
I expected there to be like fireworks and a big parade marching in at this point, but instead I waited an hour and half with my amniotic fluid all over the floor. I woke Matt up to tell him. By this point my contractions had kicked up a notch and I was heavy breathing to get through it.
When the nurse did come in, she examined me and found that I was only dilated to a 1 so she wanted to begin Pitosin. I insisted that if she was going to do that, then she would need to give me an epidural so she went to get that process started.
At this point, I was crying from the pain and so Matt came over and helped me bounce on the birthing ball which really helped distract me. This is what my mom saw when she walked in around 6 am. She thought I looked great and seemed ok. But I couldn't stop crying the pain was so bad.
The anesthesiologist came in and gave me the epidural and pretty soon, it felt like, the pain started to fade away. But not all of it! On the right side of my stomach, I had what they called a "window" that was still painful. And even though the anesthesiologist came back in to try to fix it, it never really went away. I'm not going to lie that I wasn't disappointed about this. I heard from so many other women how their labor really wasn't painful because of the epidural. I felt a bit shafted. What I found out later after the delivery, was that this pain I was feeling was from my kidneys shutting down from the preeclampsia.
They put me on magnesium sulfate and that stuff made me feel like I had flu. I know it probably does great things and saves one, or both of our lives, but it made me feel even more awful and so sleepy - or maybe the exhaustion had just taken over by now. I started vomiting again and rotated between falling asleep and vomiting.
My mom, Matt and my favorite nurse, Sue, who had taken over by then, were so wonderful and kept massaging me, holding my hand and trying to make me as comfortable as possible. They were so great but I was just so out of it.
I dilated so slowly all day - like one centimeter every two hours.
A couple times, the nurses had me put on an oxygen mask because they were worried about Mia. Matt thought that was pretty cool for some reason which made me laugh. But mostly I just felt like I was in a weird fog.
Finally the doctor came in around 7 pm and told me it I was fully dilated and it was time to push. Now I don't know what I was thinking - I clearly did not feel like I was in my right mind, because in all of this I was so excited to dilate but forgot that the hard work was still yet to come. I almost broke down when she said it was time to push.
I had imagined that I would be ready and excited to do so when the time came, but I felt more exhausted than I have ever felt in my life. And now she was asking me not to just push, but use my whole body to get the momentum to get the baby out.
I turned to Matt and said I couldn't do it while bawling and my OB said, "Oh goodness girl, you are going to have this baby out before I even get suited and get back here."
I finally realized that I had to do it so the nurse told me what to do and I half-heartedly tried. I can't tell you how exhausted I was and now I'm finding myself having to do crunches. It felt like the worst boot camp ever! And I didn't even feel like my work was doing anything. I kept telling Matt to yell at me or something to help motivate but of course, he's too nice and wouldn't do it, nor would my mom or the nurse. They just kept giving me words of encouragement and telling me I was doing great - but then telling me I needed to push harder and longer.
The nurses and Matt insisted that I look in the mirror to see Mia's little head crowning. But I refused. I thought that would make me feel worse seeing all that crazy business down there. But when my doctor came in, she made me and I was glad she did so because I could actually see Mia's little head of hair and that gave me hope.
My mom was excited about being there for this part because she had had seven children of her own, but had never been there for anyone else's delivery. The best part was when she had to sit down because she was feeling woozy watching me. Seriously Mom! That made me laugh a little too.
Throughout this time, the nurses kept bringing me ice chips which helped take my mind off somewhat and something to put in my very empty stomach.
I was losing what little energy I tried to muster quickly so I asked Matt to play my Spotify playlist and that was great - really helped me focus on something else. One again with my playlist people - That's what's up!
Until a slow song came on. I looked at Matt and said "skip it honey". So he did, and another slow song came on. I yelled " Skip it!" and he must have skipped several more times until another fast song came on.
The next time a slow song came on, I looked at Matt helplessly and next thing I knew he was doing something on my phone FOREVER - or what felt like forever. I tried to focus on pushing but kept asking Matt frantically "where is my music?" I found out later that he had skipped too many times so he was trying to upgrade my account to premium and pay so he could skip as many times as he wanted. But he didn't know my password so he had to look it up first. So hilarious!
Eventually it came back on. And I threw myself into pushing again, but when my doctor came into the room, I begged her to do something to help because I was exhausted. She said I was almost there and she didn't want to intervene. After more begging and seeing how weak I was, she said "Okay, I'll give you 15 more minutes and if you don't have this baby out by then, I'll help."
Finally I had a goal and I was determined to last that long. And 15 minutes didn't sound so bad. By this point I had been pushing for an hour and 45 minutes. With her in the room, I finally had a stern voice to finally push me harder than I thought I could go. Each time I would try, she would say "That's not good enough. Hold it for 5 more seconds" and things like that. Next time Matt said he is going to hire a boot camp instructor for me.
Now at this point, the nurse said that I only had 15 minutes left of my epidural so I needed to have Mia out before then or they would have to get the anesthesiologist again. And my OB said " oh she's going to have her out then." So every 5 minutes, the nurse would call out "epidural is going to end in 10 minutes", "5 minutes", "2 minutes", etc... Now in hindsight, I don't think this was necessary. It made me feel a bit panicked again but you know, I just trusted the doctors then.
Sixteen minutes after the doctor had said she would help, I finally gave my last push and Mia came out. So after all was said and done, the doctor's goal was just what I needed.
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| Mia right after she entered the world |
Much of what happened after was truly a blur because I fell apart on that table and laid there trying to understand what just happened. At some point they handed my Mia, though too be very honest, I felt too exhausted to do so. I'll never forget how she looked at me so inquisitively like "so that's what you look like". I expected her to not really be aware so I was shocked to see her staring at me. I held her but felt very shaky and accidentally poked her in her little eye which led Matt to ask me "honey why did you do that?" I handed her over to him and growled that he doesn't understand how I feel right now and I didn't quite feel in control of all of my reflexes. |
| I have to admit I hate these photos of me after I delivered because I think I look like death, especially if you compare it to the pic of my when I checked into the hospital. But Matt says I should look at these photos as inspiration of the journey we went through. |
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| Mia and I with our favorite nurse, Sue |
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| Matt when he first got to hold Mia |
The nurse brought me apple juice with ice chips to finally drink since I couldn't eat or drink anything while in labor. It tasted like the most delicious drink I had ever had and I couldn't get enough!
Now with the epidural run out, I was hit pretty quickly with pain. And here is why I think we should have called in the anesthesiologist earlier instead of letting it run out right when I had Mia. The nurse brought me some vicodin to take for my pain. (Note to self: have a convo with the doctor about this before labor). I refused to take the vicodin though because I know that I throw up every time I take vicodin, and I was tired of vomiting. So the nurse went to call my doctor to talk about alternative pain options and I lay on the table in excruciating pain. Matt was so upset about seeing me in more pain that he kept insisting that the nurses do something for me.
I was still on the horrible magnesium sulfate for my preeclampsia which apparently got worse after I delivered Mia. Apparently my liver started failing, which I didn't know then, though I could tell I felt worse than I had ever in my life. To be honest, I felt really guilty and disappointed at this point because I see so many photos of friends right after they deliver and they look exhausted but happy and excited to sit and cuddle their babies.
I felt like I had nothing in me to take care of myself, much less another human being. And I felt ashamed. I also had expected that immediate bond with Mia - and I didn't have that then or even for probably a week or two later.
Around this point my mom came over and told me she was leaving, which I later found out was because the nurse told her to do and not come back for 24 hours to give us time to bond. At the time, I was a little upset because I still wanted my mom around and I was worried about her driving at night. It was midnight and she had an hour and a half to drive home! She doesn't like driving at night because it's hard on her eyes. So I was mad I had to now worry about her making it home safely on top of everything else.
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| My mom and Mia |
An hour from when I delivered Mia the nurse brought me Tylenol with codeine which helped take the edge off though it didn't take the pain away. I guess that's the trade off in taking alternatives as opposed to vicodin. I will gladly take this over the vomiting though.
They brought Mia over to nurse for the first time and that was actually nice. Until her little body overheated me so bad that I started vomiting again so we had to cut the nursing section short and they took Mia to Matt. My wonderful husband jumped in right away helping with anything he could. They wanted me to do skin to skin with Mia but I was still vomiting so they asked Matt to do it. Without any hesitation, he ripped his shirt off and held her and talked to her so lovingly all the while also checking on me to see what I needed and give me words of encouragement.
I missed Mia's first bath too (and the instructions of how to even give her one) because of the vomiting so Matt handled that too. He instantly became the baby expert in the first few weeks which turned out to be a blessing for us which I don't know he would have had in normal circumstances.
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| Our little buddha Mia during her first bath |
The doctor and nurses decided to keep me in the Labor and Delivery section for an extra half day because of my health complications. Apparently they don't do that often but Labor & Delivery had better monitoring equipment there. So I stayed in the same room I had labored and delivered in. Not my favorite idea but who was I to argue. It probably would have been fine because it was a HUGE room. But I didn't love hearing other people in labor anymore. My nurse was nice enough to go get me a more confortable bed from mother baby and several nurses helped to move me to that bed which really was worth it!
After vomiting while nursing Mia, I finally stopped vomiting. But they didn't want to risk it by having Mia finish nursing so the nurse helped me hand express into a little bottle and then I slept for the most glorious couple of hours. We all slept well - Matt, Mia and I in the same room. I felt a bit rejuvenated though not anywhere near functional.
They apparently woke Matt up to feed Mia with a little spoon what I had hand expressed earlier which I appreciated. I didn't even know this happened until they woke me up a couple hours later to try feeding Mia again.
After this they moved me to Mother Baby where I continued down a journey of side effects, panic attacks and post-partum depression and anxiety. I'm going to write about the rest of this in a separate post since this has gotten quite long.
I write this now almost a year and a half after having recently met with my OB again for my annual exam. We had a really great conversation about what to expect with future children since she pretty much guarantees I'll have preeclampsia (and probably postpartum depression and anxiety again. This is the piece we will get to later). And we talked through what we can both do to improve.
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| I'll be reminding her of what she put me through for a very long time :) |
I've had many thoughts about whether I could have another child - and if so, with the same doctor in the same hospital. Much of this is physical worries but others is just the emotional experience of reliving this experience in the same place as last time.
I find more peace knowing that I have a lot of things in place that should improve my experience including not being a newbie, more knowledge about labor and preeclampsia, my body being more equipped for labor, great OB who knows my history, definitely hiring a doula - or a boot camp instructor - or both if Matt has his way. I also have a therapist, psychiatrist and a whole lot of postpartum education for the depression and anxiety side.
I want more kids - always have - and so does Matt. I am terrified about doing this again - but nowhere near where I was a year and a half ago. Sometimes I think we should just leave it where we are at because we have a beautiful daughter now that I love so much and who is worth all the work. After a crazy first year, we are finally at a place where I am enjoying this time together. And I think how much better and easier it will even get as Mia becomes more independent.
But I feel like if I give in to this and not push myself to at least try again for another child, then I'm just giving in to my fears. My body (and mind but more on that later) failed me before so I can't put all my trust in them anymore. What it really comes down to is having faith in my Heavenly Father that he will help me, and really Matt too, through it all again.
I had an expectation of how my pregnancy - and then Mia's delivery - and then first year would be and it was nothing like it. But our lives are in most ways so much better with Mia around. Matt and I both feel more complete being parents. And I don't expect having another child will be smooth because medical history is not on my side.
But I have learned through all this, that Heavenly Father won't take the trials away because he didn't for me no matter how much I pleaded. But he did help me find ways to bear them and find enough joy and comfort throughout to carry me through. He also put some wonderful people in my life to provide the support I needed.
I have some scriptures on my bathroom wall which I look at every day and these beautiful reminders have given me that little shred of faith when for so long I didn't think I had any.
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| Bathroom wall collage |
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| The loves of my life |
