i've had some pretty amazing blessings in my life: people, relationships, experiences, etc. but wow. just wow. every day and every minute is just more beautiful than the last. i feel the same but yet so different. it's overhwelming yet completely comfortable. life. is. good. and by good, i mean - perfect.
so yes, here is the story of cameron's birth. i feel like i'm bragging when i tell it (maybe i am a little bit), but most of my followers have posted theirs so i feel compelled to comply with the unspoken mommy rule, now that i can finally be a mommy and comply with the rules.
monday, march 12th:
at my weekly OB appointment, the doctor decided to check me for the first time because i had suspected that i had finally felt some contractions the previous weekend. these contractions were a bit crampy, and in my mind they were not at all contractiony, but it was the first time i had felt "something" so i mentioned it to her as a point of interest. so she checked me 2 or 3 times
with vigor because upon first check, she felt that i was 4cm dialated and 90% effaced and did not believe that it was possible for me to NOT have noticed that. but sure enough, the clock was ticking and i was beginning to suspect not only that he might come early (which i was very much hoping since the sonograms showed him to be about 7 pounds already!) but also that labor might not be so bad/scary after all if i had already made it that far. unfortunately for me, i had saved my big grocery shopping run for after the OB appointment and in checking me, the doctor had stripped my membranes. so here i was waddling around dillons, huffing and puffing, looking like a giant plum in my big purple dress, becoming increasingly suspicious that i was now actually in labor 3 weeks early with no groceries, a filthy dirty house, no hospital bag packed and no car seat in the car. after buying God knows what at the store i went home, unloaded only the stuff that needed to go in the refrigerator, and took up residence on the couch with my legs as closed as i could get them hoping that whatever was happening in my body would slow down enough for me to get a game plan going. a short while later, charles came home from work to find me curled up on the couch with francie laying on my chest (isn't it amazing how animals know when you have something going on and try to take care of you? looking back, this is a funny forshadowing of how much she looks after the baby...). i promptly informed him that he will probably be meeting his son sooner than expected; and also that i needed him to pack the bags, load the car seat, put away the groceries, clean the kitchen, and make dinner. with minimal protest, he accomplished his tasks and we went to bed with fingers crossed that everything would work out well.
tuesday, march 13th:
i had my weekly diabetes appointment scheduled for that afternoon. still feeling crummy in the morning i was not at ALL looking forward to driving an hour to overland park and was also nervous that they might tell me to stay there (as the hospital is on the other side of the building from the diabetes doctor) and pop out a kid. i asked charles to take off work early to drive me/load the car in case we were staying there/come along for moral support. he was able to do so, much to my relief. just in case i was not to return, i spent my morning at work frantically completing my "this is how you do my job" information and preparing them in every way i could for me to be gone. consequently, i ended up leaving work late and we just barely had enough time to load the car and get to the doctor - no lunch.
well i had been suspecting that i was leaking fluid after the OB appointment but never having done the whole birth thing before, i wasnt sure. but i knew that the weekly sonogram would be the best way to ensure that the baby was doing well. at the diabetes doctor, the nurse lady does the sonogram and measures the fluid and checks the baby for movement and then the doctor would breeze in for about 45 seconds, look at my blood sugar levels, make uninteresting assessments, then leave. well considering that this appointment was a bit different in that i was in LABOR, i was adamant that the doctor double check the sonogram because the other lady felt that my fluid level was sufficient and i disagreed. also, the doctor noted that my sugar levels had been high the last few days (labor - duh!) and was trying to put me on insulin for the remaining 3 weeks of my pregnancy and he could straight up bite me because that wasnt happening. so yea, the doctor looked again and found that indeed i had a very small amount of fluid so he called my OB and sent me on over to the hospital.
enter: michelle's mild panic attack.
we called all the parents and bosses right away. my parents had somewhat already packed their bags and were on the road within an hour or so, charles' mom was not far behind them. (doing 85 on the highway i might add!) since we didnt know how serious it was that the fluid level was low, and hadn't thought to ask really, we stood in the parking lot for a few minutes debating a quick run to a drivethrough for some lunch before checking in to the hospital. in the end, we opted to be cautious and went straight over. hungry, diabetic michelle was now only allowed to eat popsicles. grr.
as we were settling in to our labor room, i'm pretty sure i had the deer in the headlights look. charles took up residence on the horribly uncomfortable "hospital lazy boy" and was rediculously relaxed about the whole thing. they did my IV and some monitoring and then sent us for some laps around the floor where we walked arm in arm and i was amazed at how incredibly surreal the whole situation was. 8 months of pregnancy and somehow the actual birth came as a suprise to me. i think i just hadn't yet wrapped my mind around the reality of it, but admittedly it is a pretty big thing to do. not suprisingly, my blood pressure was through the roof so after 45 minutes of laps i finally managed to chill the hell out and they put me back in bed and went forward with the pitocin.
so there i laid for the next several hours while the blood pressure cuff (seriously, do those things need to go so tight?!) automatically kicked on every 10 mintues, they upped the pitocin every 30 minutes, and checked my blood sugar every couple of hours. charles guiltily snuck down to the caffeteria for some dinner and reported the food to actually be pretty good, so i was even more so looking forward to my next meal - whenever that might be. the parentental units arrived at around 7 and we all sat around in the labor room laughing and watching stupid things on tv. periodically a nurse or the doctor would come in and check on me. at first they would look at the monitor and ask me if i needed any pain meds yet, but as the evening went on, they would come in and check the contractions then look at me and go "WOW! that was a big one! are you SURE you don't want any pain relief?" and then even that turned into pretty much a poking in of the head to the room, see me on the bed about to fall asleep or eating a damn popsicle, laugh at what a labor freak i am, and go back out to report to the nurses station that i am officially the envy of every woman who has ever labored. birth ninja - that's my new self-appointed name. straight up birth ninja. i didn't feel a thing until about 11 or 12 when the doctor came in to check me again and i was at 8cm and she found me to still have a tiny bit of fluid left. once that was gone, the real fun began. i started to feel the contractions. thankfully they were still just like waves of menstral cramps and as they intensified to the point that i felt i might make an ass of myself in front of our parents, i asked them to step out and charles helped me breathe through them. yay for yoga experience! about the time they got really intense, i asked the nurse if i might be able to get something to take the edge off. i felt like a bit of a weenie for making it all the way through the evening without drugs and then experience about an hour of contractions and wuss out, but hey - whatever. so she checked me and found me to be at 10 cm already - the point of no return. and so i gave myself a quick "suck it up" pep talk and kept on breathing. at about 12:30, the doctor breezed in and (jokingly, apparently) told me that she was going to go do a c-section and that she expected me to be ready to go when she was done. well i guess my body didn't pick up on the sarcasm either because a very short time later i felt that uncontrollable convulsion of the vajiggity that i immediately knew to be "pushing". i equate it to 'vomiting of the vagina' because there was certainly nothing that could have been done to stop that! luckily betsey, the super awesome labor/delivery nurse, was in the room and charles was right by my side. she told me to just breathe through them for now and she would go check to see where the doctor was in the surgery. a short time later she came back to report that the doctor was done and was on her way and we began pushing. pushing. feels. great. it was nice to be able to do something with the pain and i found that it didnt really hurt much anymore. i also found that i wished i had exercised more because my lung capacity was not very good.. or maybe it was because i was tired and had a baby pressing on my lungs. either way, exercise would have been good... so anyway, the doctor came in and laughed at me for a second, revealed that she had actually been kidding about me being ready to go, and went to get her hazmat suit on. she came right back and was telling us how she liked to wait till the last second to put on all the protective garb because it is really hot to wear (she is pregnant), then she took a look at my "situation" and immediately started putting on the damn stuff! a team of nurses materialized out of thin air and on we went. so after a total of about 15 minutes (tops) of pushing, i felt the head and body enter the birth canal. isn't that a crazy feeling!? looking back, this is one of the many times when i am grateful not to have taken any pain meds because i wouldnt want to miss out on this 3 minutes of my life for anything! i felt my son make his way into the outside world - on the next contraction i got 2 pushes out as instructed, felt his head come out, and then squeezed in another good push and he was out! i gave birth! it was the most beautiful and amazing minute of my entire life. he didnt really cry much, just a mild protest. he was a little blue and slimy but they wiped him off a bit, laid a warm blanket on my chest and gave him to me. "wow, that is amazing." nothing else i could have said. i touched his little hand and he grasped my finger and i was hooked.
charles, who had done a completely amazing job, then cut the cord. and for a few brief moments we were the only 3 people in the world - my husband, our son, and me. nothing else mattered, and really, it still doesnt. we are a family, and life is perfect.