joshua's birth story: part two

Click here to read Part One.

Same disclaimer as last time, but here's a different video to watch instead. This one is of Joshua.

After an uneventful ride to the hospital, we arrived around 9:00am and were taken straight to a room. One of the best things about the hospital where I delivered is that you are in one room for your whole stay – labor, delivery (unless it’s a C-Section), recovery, and post-partum. Also, this wing of the hospital was just built (I think it opened less than a year before I had Joshua) so the rooms were beautiful and HUGE. We probably could have fit 15 people in there… not that I ever would have wanted that many people there, but it was nice to have the option, I guess.

My first nurse was wonderful – really sweet, very calm and helpful. I wish I could remember her name! I got into a gown and she asked me about a million questions. She was so nice, though, that I wasn’t even annoyed. She said we just needed to get some information and take my vitals, and then they would send me to walk the halls. I was so glad to hear that, since I was hoping to spend a lot of my labor out of the bed – I knew that walking would help my labor progress and I knew that as my contractions got worse I would want to be in different positions to manage them. I was going to try my hardest to avoid an epidural or pain medication. (Everyone says that, right?)

When the nurse took my blood pressure, the reading came back pretty high. I can’t remember the exact numbers, but it was HIGH. My blood pressure was almost perfect throughout my whole pregnancy (seriously, 120/80 at almost every reading) and never even approached the high range, so this was pretty weird.

After a long time of re-checking my blood pressure every 5-10 minutes and taking a urine sample, they diagnosed me with pre-eclampsia. 

Boo. With that diagnosis, many of my “plans” for labor and delivery went out the window. I would have to be hooked up to an IV in bed, which meant no walking the halls or managing contractions through movement. I would likely be given Pitocin and my doctor wanted to break my water to speed up the labor, which meant contractions would be AWFUL. (Pre-eclampsia isn’t too dangerous, provided it doesn’t turn into Eclampsia. So the doctors typically just want the baby out FAST in this case.) And I would be given Magnesium, which just all around makes you feel like crap.

But the ultimate goal, of course, was a healthy baby and a healthy mommy. So when plans have to get thrown out the window in order for that to happen, it’s an easy decision.

Things are kind of blurry in my memory after this point (I can probably blame the Magnesium for that). But after I got hooked up to the Pitocin and Magnesium, the doctor broke my water. I tried to tough it out for a little while, but ended up asking for the epidural. (Seriously, that Anesthesiologist was like an angel). This was around 2:00pm.

The epidural did bring some relief, except I had to keep shifting sides. (You’re not allowed to lie flat on your back with the epidural-you know, because of the massive needle in your spine-so the medicine seemed to kind of favor one side of my body.) I think we tried to watch a little TV (the first season of The West Wing, for anyone wondering), but I couldn’t focus much.

At 6:00pm the nurse said I was fully dilated and ready to push. She was going to call the doctor and we could get started. I remember one of the nurses saying that their goal for a first-time mom’s labor was about one hour of pushing. I couldn’t believe they thought that was encouraging… one whole hour?? I’ll collapse by then!

So I pushed. And pushed. And pushed. The doctor kept telling me that I needed to push harder, since they weren’t seeing much movement. I wanted to kick her, but I didn’t. I pushed some more. She assumed I wasn’t pushing hard enough since I wasn’t able to feel the contractions with the epidural. They turned off the epidural. I, again, kept from kicking anyone. I kept pushing. I cried. I told Brett I was never going to do this again. I think I threw up once or twice. But kept pushing.

Finally, at 9:26pm Joshua William Wendle was born.

Click here to read Part Three.