Her Birth by Numbers

06/05/2009 - 38 week OBGYN appt.. Internal exams hurts like hell and reveals that I am 2-3cm dilated. But my cervix was still fleshy and something else common in women who have already had babies.

1:30pm - I bend over to fix a scatter rug and spring a leak. I think I either peed my pants or my water broke. But nothing else happens and I chalk it up to my increasing incontinence.

06/06/2009

2:00am - I wake up to find Brett just coming to bed. I go back to sleep annoyed thinking if we have this baby today he will be exhausted. I don't "get" night owls.

7:00am - 2:30pm Wake up with the boys. Feed them, dress them. Do many loads of laundry. Think "When is my husband ever going to get out of bed." When he finally gets up at 9:30-10am I do my best to passive aggressively protest his sleeping habits which are rather out of sync with his parenting responsibilities... in other words I sulked... My mother came over and hung out with the boys and I made them all Kraft dinner for lunch. Brett cut the lawn and did some outside work. I weeded my birthday garden. Then Brett began to disassemble his closet to install a new closet organizer I had bought him for his birthday. He put all of his clothes on the floor of the nursery.

2:30pm - Brett takes both boys and takes the van to the dealership for an oil change. He entertains the boys by looking at the cars in the show room. I do more chores and more laundry.

3:00pm - I lie down on the couch with our two dogs for a snooze.

3:30pm - I hear the garage door opening - boys are home. I feel like I might have wet my pants again. I stand up carefully and I do wet my pants. I am still not sure I haven't peed myself. Brett comes in and puts a sleeping Evan on the couch. I go outside and sit on a patio chair and watch Quinn play some ball hockey on the driveway.

3:45pm - The ice cream truck pulls up and my water breaks full on. Total gush. I get Quinn to fetch Brett and just sit there.. stupidly. Brett comes out and I tell him and he sends me inside and stays outside with Quinn. I make it to the bathroom only to gush more fluid... I make it upstairs without making a mess. Clean myself up. At 4pm I call my mother and my aunt. Brett calls his mother. We tell everyone to come to our house for 6pm when we will leave for the hospital. I have had no contractions and I figure like with Quinn's birth the baby will arrive hours and hours and hours (22 hours to be exact) after my water breaks. Brett and start putting his closet back together. I finish the laundry or try to...

4:16pm - I have a contraction that makes me stand still and be quiet. I notice the time, it passes and I go back to folding laundry, packing my hospital bag... Then I have another contraction... then another one... at 4:36 I realize I have had seven painful contractions in 20 minutes. And I am ready for drugs - they are growing unbearable. We call everyone and tell them to come to the house immediately because I needed drugs... LIKE NOW.

4:50pm - Evan is awake and grumpy. I am swearing every few minutes. Brett is having a last minute shower. My mother-in-law, mother and father arrive. I scream for my Mom's help with carrying my hospital bags and scare everyone.

4:56pm - We drive away from the house - Brett, my mother and I. My mother-in-law comes in her own car. We leave the boys with my Dad. We pass my aunt and uncle who are on their way to help my dad with the boys.

4:56- 5:16pm - 20 minute drive along highway 401 to the hospital was awful. My contractions were coming every three minutes and lasting a minute and a half. I kept gushing fluid. Someone had told me real contractions left you unable to speak... but trust me I could speak. Yelling and swearing was my coping mechanism. I said very bad words and cursed those women who laboured without drugs by choice - what were they crazy this was dreadful and it had just started... I went on and on every three minutes. I was silent in between.

5:18pm - Brett parks the van at the hospital and my mom takes me to the labour assessment room in a wheelchair. I am still gushing and cursing. I feel like an utter wuss not to be able to withstand even the beginning of labour. The assessment room was empty and I was put right on a bed and assessed no doubt because I was making such a seriously obnoxious racket. The tiny nurse does an internal exam and tells us I am 8-9cm dilated. That explains a lot but I am still writhing and yelling. I shout out over and over that I want "The man with the drugs."

They take me into the labour room. Every two minutes I call out for the man for the drugs. He finally comes. I can't get into position for an epidural - I am stuck lying on my right side. Totally silent between contractions. Crying out in agony when they come - I the asian man in front of me by the leg - I have no idea who he is. I can hear them suggest a spinal. Then it changes. The pain changes. I feel like I need to go to the bathroom. When I tell them this they do an internal and say I am fully dilated. Then I said the baby was coming and someone says it is.. The anethietologist says he can't do anything and he disappears. Someone leaves to get the OBGYN. I feel like I am going to poop NOW. Someone says I am involuntarily pushing. I think I involuntarily push twice... I didn't poop...

5:42pm - The baby is out. I hear the Asian man say the cord was twice around the neck. Turns out he was the intern. A baby cries the OBGYN appears. My mother says "It's a girl." I don't remember the next little bit but apparently I leaned forward and said "I love you. I love you."

They put the baby on my chest and really I just wanted a break.

They did the work to help me deliver the placenta and again all I wanted was a break.
I had a small first degree tear. I felt myself being sewed up. It was nothing compared to the contractions. But really I just wanted a break.

My mother makes phone calls and my mother-in-law makes phone calls and I just lie there wanting to rest. The pain is gone. The after pains pale in comparison.

The girl who wanted an epidural for an internal exam the day before is a woman who gave birth having only taken two Tylenol a few hours before.

I felt like I had been having an ordinary day and then suddenly I was set upon by wolves or wild animals. And then they just went away and left me alone just as quickly. And I felt almost normal.

This post is going to take days to write and edit.. she is hungry.