Labour: The Only War Story We As Women Have

May 26th. D-Day.

I was ready. Unfortunately, my little bambino was not. Seems he had grown quite accustomed to life inside the womb.

My mother had arrived on the 24th to help out and was anticipating that I would deliver on my due date. I don't know why my mother thought this. I thought all women who had previously had children know that the likelyhood of delivering your first baby on your due date are slim to none. Then again, she had scheduled c-sections with both me and my sister, so perhaps I'll cut her some slack.

With every day that passed with no baby and no signs of a baby on the way, I became increasingly agitated. Everything and everyone pissed me off.

"Shane, can you PLEASE not breathe so loud."

"Mom, HELLO! Put your glasses on when you do the dishes! Look at this cup!"

"Please, feel free to walk that fast, I'll catch up in a few hours."

"It's too hot in here."

"I'm freezing! Geez, turn the air down."

"Shane, if you twitch one more time in your sleep, I'm going to push you out of the bed."

"No, I do NOT want to take a nap."

On Wednesday, my OBGYN asked me if I wanted to have my baby on Monday because he was on call. DO I??? No, no, please, let me enjoy the joys of pregnancy for another week--I love that my uterus is shoving my lungs into my throat. By all means, let's drag it out.

I went in on a Sunday to be induced with this water balloon contraption..how pleasant. Then I had to wait for them to call me anytime between 6 a.m. on Monday morning to noon. I got my call at around 11 and was at the hospital by noon.We had to sit in the waiting room for a nurse, and there was a whole family in there crying. It was sad and scary. Not the thing you want to see just before you have a baby--plus the day before there was a woman in there crying the day before and Shane asked, "DOES EVERYONE CRY IN THIS ROOM?" , he was freaked too.

Finally they got us a birthing room and broke my water. That doesn't hurt, but it is WEIRD. It feels like you are in a warm pool peeing only it's water and blood and it's quite disgusting. I was almost 4 cm and my contractions were good and strong about 2-3 minutes apart. They kept asking if I wanted drugs, nope, I was able to handle the pain really well.I was quite proud of myself because the nurse said, "You're SURE you don't need the epidural, 'cuz you can have it as soon as you need it." I heard the epidural could slow labour down, and since you're first child takes and average of 20 hours to deliver, I didn't feel like potentially prolonging the process.

I was able to breathe through the pain the first couple of hours. Around 4:00, the contractions were getting stronger and more painful, and at this time they had hooked me up to Oxytocin because I still hadn't progressed beyond 4 cm. I looked at Shane and said, "I think I can only keep this up for another 2 hours and I'm going to need drugs."

Sure enough, I was right.

At 6:00, OMGOSH...the contractions were coming every minute and I barely had time to breathe through it before another one came. I called for the nurse and said, "I'm ready for my epidural."

"No problem, I'll put a call in right now," she says.

"Are you sure Baby, because you are doing good without the drugs." says Shane.

I looked at him with fire in my eyes, "I have done this for 6 hours without any pain meds, so yes I'm sure. DRUGS NOW."

The anesthesiologist was there in a flash, and gave me a spinal epidural, apparently not common unless you are having a c-section. But the pain relief is supposed to take effect immediately and lasts about 2 hours. I was really nervous about the epidural to begin with, but once you are in that state, you don't care. He started going over the risks and I barely remember listening. I do, however, remember him mentioning paralysis and in my pain state of my mind, I do recall thinking:

"If I ended up paralyzed, I'm sure it would only be from the waist down, I could live with that." SERIOUSLY, WHAT KIND OF RATIONAL THINKING IS THAT???

Anyways, I got the drugs in me and it is amazing how still you can be when they insert that needle in your spine. Shane wouldn't let me look at the syringes and whatever else they used.

When that epidural took effect, oh what a feeling. (Or no feeling.)

I was feeling really good, and they came in and checked me again, STILL NO CHANGE FROM 4 CM! They started talking c-section and I said "No, I don't want one unless it is an absolute emergency."

They weren't too supportive of my decision, but seriously, it was only 8:00 and I had only been there 8 hours. They upped the oxytocin and said if there was no progression, we had to talk about a section again because at that point the baby had been having some decelerations in his heart rate.

I was bound and determined that I was NOT HAVING A SECTION. I started listening to the heart rate monitor, and everytime I heard his heart rate go down and they were getting ready to flip me and give me oxygen, I would move a bit, take a deep breath and the baby would be fine.

Then the scary point happened around midnight....I drifted off to sleep and felt like I was falling. When I opened my eyes I was seeing double and my heart was racing. My heart rate went up really high, the last I remember seeing was 133, but at one point, they looked at the monitor and said, the baby's heart rate is up strong, "NO, that is HER HEART RATE and the other is the baby's!"

I think it was racing at like over 160 or something, and his was decelerating. My fever spiked, I was on antibiotics and then the puking begain. Nice eh?

They checked me again, 8 cm. FINALLY.

Which is probably what happened to me, I went from 4 cm to 8 cm in an hour and it was too fast. They FINALLY took back the doses of oxytocin and surprise, surprise, both Noah and I started perking up. My fever went down, my heart rate returned to normal and Noah didn't have anymore decelerations.

All through the night, the nurse told me I was going really easy on my drugs and I could use more. I didn't need to push the button all the time so I didn't. I just breathed it out. I needed to save some drugs for the delivery. She said there was another bag ready to go. I just ignored her.

I think they like to get you hopped up on drugs so you'll consent to stuff easier. For instance, my doctor was done at 8 a.m., I'm sure he was thinking he needed to have that baby out before his shift was over. But who knows. I finally started pushing at 4 a.m. (pushing against the contractions feels SO GOOD, it really helps get rid of the pain) and vaguely remember them saying he was turned and they were going to use the forceps to turn him properly. I started getting tired, and they let me rest.

My doctor came in around 6 a.m. and asked about the forceps again, I was so out of it and I'm like, "Sure whatever."The next thing I know there is a million people in my room and I'm pushing and they are pulling with what Shane described as "the world's largest shoe horn" and it was INSANE. The shoulders were MURDER to deliver. Forget the head, it was those shoulders.

Finally, at 6:18 a.m., he was here, all 9 lbs 5 oz and 22 inches of him. So, no c-section and no second bag of drugs. Never underestimate the power of a determined woman in labour!

For those of you who have yet to deliver your first baby, NOTHING will prepare you for what is about to happen to your body. Not even reading this labour story.

Labour is NOT so horrible that I'd never do it again, women have babies everyday, but it is also NOT a walk in the park. And it is nothing like what you read, what you have heard, or what your friends have told you. Just know there is a beginning and an end and it's SO WORTH IT.

And that's all that matters.