Somehow, the hospital staff allowed me to walk with a hospital staff escort to the labor and delivery unit. It was extremely uncomfortable being in the elevators (I think we took two) during my contractions. Once we got up to the labor and delivery unit, they put Chris and I in this "waiting room" because they were still cleaning out triage. I was EXTREMELY angry about this because my midwife had called the hospital around 8:30pm to inform them that I would be coming in. I had to use the bathroom very badly and was very impatient that I had to wait for them to clean the room out. They ended up allowing me to use the bathroom in my triage room and I was instructed to put on a hospital gown. At this point, I just didn't care...I actually don't even remember using the bathroom. Chris left to move his car from the ER area and bring all our belongings in. Lisa was with me in the triage room while we were waiting for my midwife to come in. The nurses were asking me questions and placed an external fetal monitor on my stomach because they needed to get a solid 20 minutes of my heart rate as well as Noah's before they could clear me to go to the alternative birthing center. I remember very little beyond this, so the story is a little vague and a lot of has been clarified between Chris and Lisa.
My midwife, Cynthia, arrived to the hospital after I had spent about 15-20minutes in triage. She checked my cervix for dilation and claimed that I was 9cm! Then, she said, "well, maybe 8.5". I remember saying along with one of the nurses, "Are you serious?" I think I said, "SHUT UP" in the middle of a contraction. Cynthia cleared me in triage and they made attempts to move me to the ABC room. I told them I didn't want to walk and asked them if they would wheel the bed in there. I remember laying on the bed moaning for the majority of the time I was in triage and moving into the ABC room. I remember being surprised that I was finally in the ABC room and the birthing tub was being filled. I remember that I wanted to get in the tub, but it wasn't full yet and I decided to wait until it was a little full. This continues to get more and more blurry in my mind...
I was able to walk to the birthing tub and laid down on my side in the tub and continued to groan through my contractions. I was in the water for about 15minutes when I said, "I want to push." At this time, my midwife wasn't in the room, so it was just the nurse, Chris and Lisa. No one really said anything to me and Chris said, "we just kinda ignored it because we weren't sure you were serious and Cynthia was out of the room." Cynthia came back a few minutes later and with my next contraction I said, "I want to push." Cynthia checked my cervix again and said, "Okay, why don't you try pushing." So, I assume I was 10cm at this point.
The pushing stage of labor was very hard for me because I could not figure out how to effectively push. The water slowed down my contractions, so I was only having contractions every 5 minutes or so and only had effective pushes at the end of the contractions. Noah was crowning for a VERY long time and I couldn't figure out how to push to move him further down. Finally, I became determined to get him out and just pushed and pushed and pushed. Once the top of his head came through the birth canal, the rest of his body just slid out and I said, "Holy shit." The nurse said, "Yup, it's pretty much like a big shit." (This was exactly at 1am on 4.9.10) Noah was put on my chest immediately and he was already clean because he was in the water. We waited for his cord to stop pulsing and Chris cut the cord. I was moved out of the tub onto the bed and Cynthia examined me. Unfortunately, I had quite a bit of tearing and needed stitches. Noah was cleaned, weighed, etc all in the room and I was able to hold him. He just looked up at me and it was amazing. :) I was so exhausted and in quite a bit of pain as well, so it was hard for me to initiate breastfeeding and my body was physically in shock. I began trembling and shaking uncontrollably and my blood pressure dropped tremendously that I almost passed out several times. I remember there being several nurses in the room at this time and they started me on an IV to increase my fluids and they brought me orange juice. :D Oh yes, as I am typing, I'm remembering that Cynthia was concerned about the amount of blood I was continuing to loose and she was concerned that my uterus wasn't contracting enough. They put a catheter in to empty out my bladder because Cynthia thought that a full bladder was contributing to the bleeding and not allowing my uterus to contract as much. THIS WAS EXTREMELY PAINFUL! I don't remember much after things settled down. I know at about 4am, Cynthia left and Lisa left as Chris, Noah, and I got settled in for bed.
I didn't get much sleep because of my IV and the blood pressure cuff that was going off every 15 minutes. The nurses kept coming into the room to get my vitals. I was VERY tired the next day. But, I was able to eat breakfast that came at 8am and napped throughout the day. My mom and Jack came to see us at the hospital and brought Wendy's for Chris. I had really wished I had Wendy's too instead of hospital food. We rested the rest of the day and were allowed to continue to stay in the ABC room which had a queen size bed so Chris was able to stay with me and could sleep comfortably at night. We were discharged at 11:45am on April 10, 2010. :)
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