My Story

It's hard to believe that two short months ago, we welcomed Mason into our family. The time is really passing by quickly -- even though there are some days that seem never-ending! Up until Mason's birth, I was hearing lots of labor and delivery stories from friends, coworkers, family, and even complete strangers (i.e. Redner's cashier). My friend, K, delivered her baby within 20 minutes of arriving at the hospital. My friend, E, was turned away from the hospital because they had no room for her. My cousin, A, delivered right on her due date. And for my sister, M, all I need to say is 27 hours of labor and forceps. Enough said. Quite frankly, her story worried me the most! How would I ever make it for 27 hours?? Here we are, E, A, me, M, and K at my baby shower. Even though they all had interesting stories, just look how adorable their babies are!

After hearing all these stories, I nervously began to wonder what would my story be? Well, on Monday, November 14th, my story began.

It was a normal Monday for me. I went to work in the morning, taught all day, and had a scheduled doctor's appointment for 5:45 that evening since I was now 5 days overdue. I felt perfectly normal. Because of the doctor's appointment, I knew I wouldn't have time to get home and cook a meal for us, so we had a crockpot dinner cooking during the day. I was so looking forward to going home to finished meal after my appointment.

I arrived at the appointment and the doctor told me we would schedule an induction for Wednesday, November 16th since that would be one week overdue. Sounded good to me. Then, she had me get up on the table just to check to see if any progress had been made. I won't forget her words, "Still 2 centi--oh my goodness, your water just broke! Looks like we won't be waiting until Wednesday." From there, she sent me directly to the hospital. I called Matt immediately to tell him to meet me at the hospital. "So what should I do with the crockpot?" Really, Matt? Not now.

We met up in the parking garage and in we walked to the third floor. The nurse informed us that they were currently cleaning a room for us and as soon as it was ready, she would come get us in the waiting room. There we sat alone for one hour in the waiting room. Good news: got to watch Wheel of Fortune in there. At 7:30, our nurse, Beth, came to get us and apologized for the wait. No big deal to either of us, I still felt perfectly fine.

We got settled in to our room and Beth even smuggled me a sandwich and fruit since I told her that I hadn't eaten since lunch at 11:00 that morning. Matt of course explained that we had a perfectly good pot roast waiting for us at home. Get over it, Matt. He, too, was starving though. He called his brother to bring him a sub and after that he was good to go.

They waited a few hours to see if I made any progress on my own. During that time we enjoyed the Monday night line up of our favorite television shows. Around 10:30 I was only at 3 cm. They decided to administer the pitocin to get things moving faster. And boy, did it! Within 30 minutes, I had begun to feel contractions for the first time. They were painful. I endured them with a whole lot of breathing and crying for about an hour a half. At that time, I was at 4 cm and decided it was time to bring on the epidural.

Matt was standing next to me while the epidural was being prepared. All of a sudden I heard the nurse say, "Matt are you feeling dizzy?" Why was she asking this? I hadn't even looked at him in the past few minutes because I was so focused on not moving my spine. To my surprise he answered, "Yeah, just a little. I'm okay though." With that response, Beth told him to sit down right away. She said she can only deal with one patient at a time. She quickly got another nurse to bring in orange juice for him. Poor Matt couldn't handle seeing the long needle for the epidural. Within 20 minutes of the injection, I was feeling like a new person.

Within the next two hours, I went from 4 to 8 cm with not one bit of pain. "Are you sure I'm still having contractions?" Yes, apparently I was. Around 8:00 the next morning they said I was ready to push. Well that was going to be interesting because I couldn't feel anything below my waist. The epidural was still in full effect since I had progressed so quickly. The literally had to place me into the position to push because I had no feeling. I had no control of my muscles so basically although I thought I was pushing like a rockstar, I wasn't doing a darn thing. This lasted for a fun two hours. And with every pathetic attempt at a push that I gave, his heart rate dropped significantly. They began talking about an emergency c-section if it continued much longer with no progress. I knew I had to give more, but I just couldn't feel anything. Talk about frustrating. I just remember thinking over and over again, I wish I had Matt's strength right now to get me through this. He's so much stronger than me. Please God, give me Matt's strength.

Around 9:45am I somehow got just barely enough feeling to give several somewhat mediocre pushes and out he came at 10:00 sharp. That part is a total blur to me. I don't remember him coming out. I remember Matt saying, "Here he comes!" I had the oxygen mask on and all I remember was seeing about 15 nurses and doctors rush in, the table folded apart to catch the baby, and the next thing I knew, there was a crying baby in front of me.

Because of the drop of his heart rate, he wasn't able to be placed on me right after the delivery. Instead, they took him immediately to his area of the room to clean him up and monitor him. Matt stayed with Mason while the aftermath began with me. I'll spare you the details about the clean up process with me. I think Matt summed it up best, "It looked like a butcher shop in there." Well, he would know.

And that's my story. And this is my baby.