october 20th 2012 - birth story

Saturday October 20th, 39weeks, 9am, Lucas and I were hanging out in bed, which never happens, and I felt a little cramp and a gush and ran to the bathroom. Before I even got to the en suite, everything was soaked. I knew my water had broken so I called the hospital and they said I could come in to get checked, but not to rush. Had a shower and did my hair and makeup and got everything all packed up. Took some photos and off we went.

When we got there around 11, I got all hooked up and they checked, I was already 3cms! The baby wasn't moving as much as they wanted so I ended up getting a lunch there and stayed until about 12:30pm. I couldn't really feel any contractions at this point, so they sent me home. Luckily we only live about 15 minutes from the hospital so I was okay with going home. We were home for about an hour and I started to really feel the contractions, they were painful but definitely tolerable. 2 hours later they were coming every 2-3 minutes and lasting about 30 seconds or so. We decided to go back to the hospital around 3pm. When we got there I went straight to the labour and delivery room. The nurse was the same one I had in the morning and she was awesome. She checked me and I was 4 cms, really feeling the contractions, but again still tolerable. I was really hoping to wait it out for the epidural, but another nurse came in after about 30 minutes of being there all hooked up and said that the anesthesiologist was leaving and I had to make a choice to either get it then, or they did not know when he would be back. It could have been 1 hour or 4 hours, he did not know. So I decided to get it then.

Unfortunately, it didn't work properly. It took away some of the contraction pain, but the pressure was extremely intense. They tried to give me 2 other different drugs to make the pressure and back pain go away, but they didn't work either. It was awful because I was totally frozen so I couldn't move or anything.  So my lovely nurse was finally getting ready to leave for the day and said she would wait for my new nurse to check me. When the new nurse came in, she was also very nice. She checked me around 7:15pm and I was 7cms.  There was about an hour and a half where they were so painful, I was just breathing through them and they hurt, a lot.  She said that before I started to push she was going to give me another drug to see if we could take some of the pressure away. Yes please!! So next time she checked me I was finally 10cms and ready to push. So she went ahead and gave me the drug, said that I could get it twice, 10 minutes apart. She gave me the first one and it didn't really do anything, and then after the second one, ahhh some relief. At this point, we are informed that the only doctor there for the night was just heading into a C-sections (the only other person in labour at that time) and I would have to wait an HOUR to push. Well, that sucked A LOT. Of course by the time it came to really push the drugs had completely warn off since they only had about a half hour-hour time of effectiveness. I pushed for exactly one hour. At the beginning it wasn't so bad, but I kept throwing up, which sucked. At the very end, I started getting really hot and feeling like I was going to pass out. She was crowning and the doctor wasn't in the room yet and they kept telling me not to push, which was so hard. The burning was so intense and I didn't think I would be able to do it, I kept saying 'I can't do it, I'm going to pass out, I'm so hot' They gave me a cold compress on my forehead and I just knew that I had to get her out of there. So at 10:04pm, out came my gorgeous Ellia Domenica, 6lbs 11oz and 20inches long. They put her right on my chest, and daddy cut the cord. I ended up with a 2nd degree tear so they had to stitch me up, which was so painful and then my mom and dad came into the room to see her for a bit. We were then moved to our private room and everything was great. We stayed 2 nights and I was so happy to come home. I am still so happy that I didn't have to have a section, as everyone thought I would...but nope, I did it!